LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LETTRRS 



GOLIATH OF GAS, 



BETTER KNOWN IN MODERN TIMES 



ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 



Having Special Reference to the Letters of Dr. Field and 

Col. Ingersoll, Published in the North American 

Review in the Years 1887-8. 



a 




BY JOHN LELLYETT, 

Of the Nashville Bar. 



Printed for the Author. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 

Barbee & Smith, Agents, Nashville, Tenn. 



-£U*' 



l A- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S0O, 

By John Lellyett, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE. 

ADAPTED FEOM THE HEBREW OF SAMUEL. 

And there went out a champion, out of the camp of 
the Philistines, named Goliath of Gas, whose height 
was six cubits and a span. And he had a helmet of 
brass upon his head; and the brass covered his face. 
And he was clothed with a coat of mail ; and the weight 
thereof was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had 
greaves of brass upon his legs, and a gorget of brass be- 
tween his shoulders. And from within him came a 
stream of gas, burning with fire. The sound thereof was 
like thunder, and its flame as lightning. And the star! 
of his spear was like a weaver's beam ; and his spear's 
head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. And one 
(the North American Review) bearing a shield, went before 
him. 

And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and 
said unto them, Am I not a Philistine, and ye the 
servants of Fear? Behold I come to drive Fear out of 
the world ! And the Philistine said, I defy the armies 
of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight 

(3) 



PREFACE. 



together. And the Philistine drew near morning and 
evening, and presented himself many days. 

And David took his staff in his hand, and chose five 
smooth stones out of the brook ; and his sling was in 
his hand. And the Philistine said, Am I a dog, that 
thou comest to me with a staff and with stones ? And 
the Philistine cursed him by his gods. (Sam. xvii.) 



Note. 
These letters were written in 1SS8; and though containing 
matter of more general application, relate specialty to the let- 
ters of Ingersoll and Dr. Field, published about that time in the 
North American Review. The Author. 

Nashville, May, 1890. 



Betters to Ingersoll. 

(5) 



PlRST lETTER 



To Robert G. Ingersoll : 

Forasmuch as several men of distinction 
have from time to time entered into public 
controversy with, you, in respect to the trnth 
of the Revelation which Christians receive as 
the Word of God, I have thought proper to 
give my opinion also. This I do with the 
more boldness because it seems to me that 
a voice should be heard from the undistin- 
guished people of no reputation — of whom I 
may claim to be a representative man— con- 
cerning questions which are of as much im- 
portance to us as to philosophers, doctors of 
divinity, jurists, and statesmen. 

I recognize in your various publications, 
oral and written, a "something without form 
and void," over which broods the darkness of 
chaos, but gleaming from that gloom the light- 

(?) 



LETTERS TO 1XGEES0LL. 



ning flashes of the storms which agitate the 

bosom of confusion— 

Yet from those flames no light, 
But rather darkness, visible. 

And yet methinks that these "tumultuous 
utterances " of yours do better represent the 
popular thought of skepticism than the more 
deliberate and orderly writings of graver and 
more thoughtful unbelievers. The works of 
these latter stand as over against the books of 
systematic theology. They speak the mind 
of the few, and are read, understood, and 
appreciated by the few. They are calm, pro- 
found, dry, passionless. Your palaver finds 
its opposite in the emotional religion of the 
enthusiasts, the eloquent appeals of the re- 
vivalists and emotional preachers, the tears 
of the mourners, and the rejoicings of new 
converts. If Satan desire to project a set-off 
to every new method of the cause of salvation, 
Colonel Ingersoll would make an unequaled 
commander of a Damnation Army. Many of 
your sayings have one element of true poetry : 
they give utterance to sentiments "so often 



GOSPEL OF GOLIATH. \) 

felt, but ne'er so well expressed " by the Tom, 
Dick, and Harry of skepticism. Neither of 
these is capable to launch upon the intellect- 
ual ocean a theodicy or an atheodicy. Their 
brains are not made that way. Nor can they 
read such things. They can read your cha- 
otic lightnings, simply because they are with- 
out system or coherency, and are chiefly the 
poetic utterances of the suggestions of Satan al- 
ready impressed upon their wandering minds. 

Whether you be regarded as a sage philos- 
opher or as a philosophical boxer, the John 
L. Sullivan of an intellectual prize ring, 
and the North American Review as the Kich- 
ard K. Fox of the philosophical sport — your 
utterances are not to be despised. They are 
exercising a potential influence for good or 
evil. Your teaching is offered and received 
as a gospel by many who have souls to be 
saved or lost— lives in this world worth saving 
for the good, even if this world were all. 

You proclaim it as a gospel when you say: 

My object is to drive fear out of the world. Fear is the 
jailer of the mind. Christianity, superstition — that is 



10 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

to say, the supernatural — makes every brain a prison, 
and every soul a convict. 

Before we bid a final farewell to the fears 
which have been keeping our company from 
the cradle hitherto, and which have walked 
with our fathers in all the days of their pil- 
grimage, let us examine your gospel — your 
statements of fact, whether you can be relied 
on for accuracy of fact; and your reason- 
ings, whether they be wise or foolish, sane 
or insane. No magnanimous teacher will de- 
cline such examination. No sensible disci- 
ple will sit at the feet of a master who can- 
not stand such scrutiny. 

In the beginning of your first letter to Dr. 
Field, you say: 

It is not often that a minister of the gospel of univer- 
sal benevolence speaks of an unbeliever except in 
terms of reproach, contempt, and hatred. 

Is this true or false? It is no trifling mat- 
ter, but one of the utmost gravity. If true, 
it is a great scandal to the religion these min- 
isters of the gospel profess and to the com- 



IN THE MIRROR. 11 

munity over which Christ is supposed to have 
set them as overseers. Is it true? I shall 
presume you do not go often to Church. If 
you did go at all, you would hear the unbe- 
liever spoken of and spoken to: often in terms 
of kindness and love, generally in terms of 
pity, very seldom in terms of hatred and 
contempt. The rule will be found the same 
in the writings of Christian ministers. This 
is only an assertion of mine, in reply to an 
assertion of yours, but with this advantage: 
I have been there much; you, but little. Those 
who go there will agree with me; those who 
do not go may some of them agree with you. 
You are a lawyer; and as such may decide for 
yourself at least which class of witnesses, if 
equally honest and capable, may claim the 
greater credit. 

But your manner indicates that you thought 
you were uttering a truth which would scarce- 
ly be questioned. How did you fall into such 
a mistake? The world, brave Colonel, is a 
great mirror. Smile upon it, and it smiles 
upon you. Frown answers to frown. The tiger 



12 LETTERS TO 1NGERS0LL. 

inside the glass will swing his tail just like the 
tiger on the outside. And if the outside tiger 
essay to spring upon the other, his shadowy 
antagonist will meet him half-way. It is a 
gallery of echoes. Sing in it sweet songs of 
love, and it replies in multiplied strains of 
kindness. Pour out volumes of blasphemy, 
and pandemonium dins your ears in response. 
May you not, in the ecstacy of genius, have 
been studying your own shadow and listening 
to the echoes of your own voice ? 
You say to Dr. Field: 

The statement of your letter, that some of your breth- 
ren look upon me as a monster, on account of my un- 
belief, tends to show that those who love God are not 
always the friends of their fellow-men. 

Is this good reasoning? In the first place, 
if a man were to see a horse normally formed, 
but twenty hands high, he would look upon 
that horse as a monster. Yet he would not 
hate the horse for his monstrosity, whether 
the man love God or not. But you may 
conceive that Dr. Field intended a hateful 



AS A MONSTER. 13 



monster. Let us try you on a larger point. 
You further inquire: 

Is it not strange that people who admit that they 
ought to be eternally damned, etc., can be so arrogant- 
ly egotistic as to look upon others as monsters? 

This is not a very small point, for it is an 
imputation of arrogant egotism. Are you in 
the palace of mirrors again? But, good logi- 
cian, is it either arrogant or egotistic to look 
upon another being as a monster or as any 
thing else? I might regard you as a monster, 
and flee from you. That would not be arro- 
gant, and though I might be taking care of 
the ego, I would not be asserting him. It 
would not be egotistic. He who looks upon 
another as a monster may think himself a 
pigmy. No; there is no suggestion of arro- 
gance or egotism in the fact that one looks 
upon another as a monster. This, which you 
offer as something in the nature of argument, 
is only a blast for the gallery of echoes. 

But suppose some of the people do look 
upon you as a monster, is not that a matter of 



14 LETTERS TO 1NGERS0LL. 

opinion, with which their friendly or unfriend- 
ly feelings have nothing to do? You say: 

Th etruth is that no one can be justly held responsi- 
ble for his thoughts. The brain thinks without asking 
our consent. We believe or we disbelieve, without an 
effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of 
evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of 
him who watches. There is no opportunity of being 
honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. 
The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. 

Why, then, do you complain if some people 
regard you as a monster? You say that it 
"tends to show that those who love God are 
not always the friends of their fellow-men." 
You mean that their belief is the result of 
their unfriendly feelings— that their head has 
followed their heart. You forget so soon that 
"no one can be justly held responsible for his 
thoughts;" that "the brain thinks without 
asking our consent;" that "we believe or we 
disbelieve, without an effort of the will." My 
good and logical sir, " belief is a result." Ee- 
member that " there is no opportunity of be- 
iiiQ- honest or dishonest in the formation of 



PHILOSOPHY OF BELIEF. 15 

an opinion." Do not forget that " the conclu- 
sion is entirely independent of desire." Yet 
yon speak of these "brethren" very sarcas- 
tically; and evidently intend that if they love 
God they ought to love yon. This may be 
true. Bnt yon also mean that if they love yon 
they would not look upon you as a monster — 
meaning of the hateful sort. I quote but lit- 
tle of what you say in caustic derision of the 
assumed hypocrisy of these lovers of God who 
are supposed to hate Ingersoll. You come at 
them on one side and on another; and you 
lash them with a whip of scorpions on all sides 
because they regard Ingersoll as a monster. 
You hold them responsible for their belief. 
Dear brother in error, "belief is a result," a 
"conclusion entirely independent of desire." 
At least you say so. And elsewhere you sol- 
emnly profess your faith that "that which 
happens must happen." Why, then, do you 
kick against the goads? 

But in spite of your philosophy of belief, 
which I have just been quoting and applying, 
I must fall back to your first position, and 



16 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

agree with you that if these Christian lovers 
of God also loved Ingersoll this would incline 
them not to look upon him as a hateful mon- 
ster. Their love for Ingersoll would have 
such an influence on "the brain that thinks 
without asking our consent," that like Brother 
Field, they would not look upon Ingersoll as 
a monster of wickedness, to be hated. Are 
you not mistaken about the brain thinking 
without our consent? The brain may break 
away, or be broken away from our control 
once in awhile; but the heart has no servant 
more docile than the brain. I doubt if any 
man's opinion of any other man will be favor- 
able, if hatred toward that person be the feel- 
ing of the heart. 

And this, good sir, makes me think an evil 
thought concerning yourself. I say "Get 
thee hence, Satan," but he will not hence. 
Charity, that thinketh no evil, stands aside; 
and the imp still whispers in my ear. You 
hate Jehovah, as you so freely declare; and I 
find you look upon him as a monster — a hate- 
ful monster. But if you loved Jehovah, 



PHILOSOPHY OF BELIEF. 17 

would not Irtgersoll soon find that the image 
of the monster had faded from his mind? 
Yon think those who look upon yon as a mon- 
ster, entertain such opinions, because they are 
"not friends of their fellow-men," meaning 
that they hate you. May they not as well 
say that Ingersoll looks upon Jehovah as a 
monster because he hates Jehovah? But you 
will say you hate Jehovah because he is a 
monster, and may they not say that they do 
not love Ingersoll because he is a monster? 
Do those brethren hate Ingersoll because they 
look upon him as a monster? or do they look 
upon him as a monster because they hate him ? 
You evidently assume that they look upon In- 
gersoll as a monster because they hate him. 
And however the fact may be, I think you 
here take a good view of the philosophy of be- 
lief. Considering the brilliant genius, and 
aggressive and denunciatory manner of In- 
gersoll, I believe that as a rule those men who 
hate him will look upon Ingersoll as a mon- 
ster. He is no pigmy or commonplace man. 
If they hate him, that feeling of the heart will 
2 



18 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

so influence the thinking of the brain that 
ninety-nine out of every hundred will look 
upon him as a monster. I mean that as a rule 
the head follows the heart far more than the 
heart follows the head. 

It has been said that " with what judgment 
ye judge, ye shall be judged." And if you so 
judge these brethren, that the cause of their 
unfavorable opinion of you is to be found in 
their hearts, then this scripture is fulfilled 
when the brethren judge that the cause of 
Ingersoll's unfavorable opinion of the God of 
the Christian and his religion is to be found 
in the heart of Ingersoll. 

In deciding the question, then, between you 
and yourself, I must hold that you are about 
right when you judge that men who look 
upon you as a monster of evil because of your 
unbelief, as a rule are led to such opinion, in 
part at least, by the unfriendly feelings of their 
hearts. In spite of whatever better reasons 
they have, if they loved you, that love would 
reverse or modify their opinion. And I hold 
that you are mistaken, in the other place, 



HEAD FOLLOWS HEART. 19 

when you say that the mental "conclusion is 
entirely independent of desire." This is error, 
and this error is the cause of many errors. 
You say to Dr. Field: 

You imist know that perfectly honest men differ on 
many important subjects. Some believe in free trade, 
and others are the advocates of protection. There are 
honest Democrats and sincere Eepublicans. How do 
you account for these differences? 

"Well, in large part thus: The importer de- 
sires more commerce with foreign countries. 
His thinking brain follows the desire of his 
heart, and he believes in free trade. The 
whisky monopolist desires the perpetuation of 
the internal revenue system for its advantages 
to him. The head follows the heart, and he 
believes in the policy of collecting less by the 
tariff, that the necessity of collecting by the 
internal revenue system may continue. The 
manufacturer desires protection, therefore he 
believes in protection. The conclusion of the 
mind is not " entirely independent of desire," 
but seems generally controlled by the desire 
in all these cases. You immediately continue: 



20 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

Educated men, Presidents of colleges, cannot agree 
upon questions capable of solution — questions that the 
mind can grasp, concerning which the evidence is open 
to all, and where the facts can with accuracy be ascer- 
tained. How do you explain this? 

I explain it by saying that 1mm an reason is 
not to be relied on, even in respect to " ques- 
tions which the mind can grasp, concerning 
which the evidence is open to all, and where 
the facts can with accuracy be ascertained;" 
for some of these great minds must be in er- 
ror. And then I take a lesson from this ob- 
servation, and say that we cannot know the 
truth in respect to the things of God which 
are the subjects of what we call revelation, 
unless God reveal them to us in such manner 
that we may receive them by what we call 
faith. We find that we cannot depend on our 
reason; for the opinions of "honest Democrats 
and sincere Eepublicans " are generally found 
running in the direction of their personal in- 
terests, the solemn judgments of supreme 
judges are swayed by the influence of their 
hearts, and Presidents of colleges cannot 



THE EBBING HEAD. 21 

agree upon easy questions, even where the 
heart is indifferent to the result. 

How then shall God, if there is a God, re- 
veal himself to man in such manner that man 
may know that it is God who speaks? Shall 
it be through a subtle philosophy which only 
the wise and understanding can look into? 
Then even the few could not agree about it. 
And as for the many, they could receive the 
revelation at all, correctly or incorrectly, only 
by faith in the teachings of the few; and as 
the few would not agree, whom should the 
many believe ? Some unbelievers complain of 
the paucity of evidence, saying if there is a 
God and he would reveal himself to man, why 
does he not show forth such signs and won- 
ders, and in a manner so unquestionable that 
none can doubt? They would have a revela- 
tion of such a nature that "the wayfaring- 
man though a fool, need not err therein." 
And then when we tell them that the average 
human being is no wiser than this wayfaring 
fool in respect to the abstractions of philoso- 
phy, and that yet by his instinct and his hum- 



22 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

bier intelligence lie has, over all the world 
and over all the ages, believed in a God or in 
a plurality of gods, the average infidel finds 
nothing in this even tending to prove that 
there is a supernatural power. Jesus gave 
thanks to his Father that he has " hid these 
things from the wise and understanding, and 
revealed them unto babes " — that is, to the 
unwise, who are quite incapable of philosoph- 
ical research. I reckon this is the only way 
God could make his revelation so plain that 
the wayfaring man, though a fool, may not 
err therein. The peasant, when you ask him 
for the interned evidences of his religion, puts 
his hand upon his heart. He does not under- 
stand your language exactly. That is the 
only way God can give it to him, so far as I 
know. The peasant cannot reason it out. He 
may hear you, and hear me, and hear the 
preacher. But how can he tell which of us 
speaks the truth, or that either of us does so? 
God must reveal the truth to his heart, to his in- 
stincts, to his inner consciousness, or the truth 
can never be known to the wayfaring simple one. 



A QUESTION FOR THE JURY. 23 

But when Christ speaks of "these things 
being hidden from the wise and understand- 
ing " it should by no means be taken to imply 
that this class of his creatures may not find 
'these hidden things. " The Jew that requires 
a sign, and the Greek that seeks after wisdom " 
— these may both find the thing they require 
and seek after. But they find by their re- 
spective methods what God has revealed to the 
babe. As God has not given the searching 
power aud* opportunity to the many, he has 
given them the revelation without it. How 
can your little children, and youth, and the 
mass of mankind, enter into an examination 
of what we commonly call the evidences of 
religion or revelation? 

Whether or not God has made a revelation 
to man by signs and wonders, and whether or 
not he still continues to reveal himself to man- 
kind, are questions of fact for the -jury ; and 
not chiefly questions of law for the court. 
I do not fully know how you argue the case; 
but some of your brethren, if agnostics have 
brethren, argue these questions in a manner 



24 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

we do not allow in the court-house. On the 
question, Has God made a revelation to man ? 
they do not call witnesses, but say we must 
first ascertain whether there is a God. For, 
say they, if there is no God, then he could 
make no revelation. And as we cannot know 
with certainty of the existence of a God with- 
out revelation, their method places them be- 
hind a door that closes from within. The 
more they press against it the more firmly are 
they shut up, the more effectually do they 
shut out from their dungeon the light of the 
sun which lighteth the world without. Man 
cannot know the sun but by the revelation he 
makes to man. We know the sun by his rev- 
elation; and do not inquire first whether 
there is a sun — saying, " for if there is no sun, 
we cannot receive light from him." 

But I perceive you have finally made a 
confession of faith. At one time you ap- 
proach it with questioning hesitation, thus: 

Is it not possible that wo may find that every thing 
has been necessarily produced ? Thi,^, of course, would 
end in the justification of men. Is not that a desir- 



goliath's confession of faith. 25 

able thing? Is it not possible that intelligence may 
at last raise the human race to that sublime and philo- 
sophic height? 

Then again you confess your faith positive- 
ly thus: 

Starting from the same declaration, that man does as 
he must, I reach the conclusion that we shall finally 
perceive in this fact justification for every individual. 

You again proceed cautiously as follows: 

Is there not room for a better, a higher philosophy? 
After all, is it not possible that we may find that every 
thing has been necessarily produced — that all religions, 
and superstitions, and mistakes, and all crimes, were 
simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of this 
perception may come not only love and pity for others, 
but absolute justification for the individual ? May we 
not find that every soul has, like Mazeppa, been lashed 
to the wild horse of passion, or like Prometheus, to the 
rocks of fate? 

Finally you give us this positive confession: 
I do not believe that I am the sport of accident, or 
that I may be dashed to pieces by the blind agency of 
nature. There is no accident, and there is no agency. 
That which happens must happen. The present is the 
child of all the past, the mother of all the future. 

The last-quoted paragraph may be taken as 



2b LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

the conclusion of the whole matter. I con- 
fess the puzzle when I attempt to parse its 
several sentences. When you say ; ' that which 
happens must happen, " it seems clear that 
you are a fatalist. But when you say "I do 
not believe that I may be clashed to pieces by 
the blind agency of nature " — and " there is 
no accident " — what can this mean ? " Blind " 
agency of nature must mean unintelligent agen- 
cy of nature. This is the sense in which phi- 
losophers use the word Hind, when applied 
thus. You must mean that you do not be- 
lieve you may be destroyed or injured, or that 
any thing shall happen to you by the unintel- 
ligent agency of nature. We will assume that 
you believe a man may be struck by lightning 
or dashed even to pieces by a whirlwind. You 
put the ego for the man. You do not believe 
that a man may be destroyed by an unintelli- 
gent agency of nature. We will not suppose 
you think the wind or lightning, or other such 
element or force is intelligent; for then what 
agency of nature would we call blind or un- 
intelligent? You say "there is no agency," 



THE FATALIST. 27 

but let us use the word agency for convenience. 
If the agency — the wind or lightning — is not 
intelligent, and you may be destroyed by this 
means, and yet not by a blind agency, then 
this must be because there is behind or above 
the agency, and controlling it, a something 
else which really does the act, using the wind 
or lightning as means; and this something 
must not be blind, but intelligent. Other- 
wise you certainly may be dashed to pieces 
by a blind (unintelligent) force of nature, call 
it by what name you choose. You see how 
the agency of logic itself (blind or intelligent) 
brings you perforce into the very presence 
of God. If you do not see that it brings you, 
ex necessitate, into the presence of intelligence 
which moves the elements, the blindness must 
be within you. 

You say: " There is no accident, and there is 
no agency." Let us see if in this you are not 
thinking something which is unthinkable. 
What meaning shall we attach to your words ? 
A humorous friend of mine started in busi- 
ness, bravely saying: "There is no such word 



28 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

as fail." When soon thereafter he failed he 
explained that his meaning was that there was 
no such word as phail, but spelled with an/ 
he would not deny the word. Your ready hu- 
mor may dispose of the words accident and 
agency in a similar manner. But without a 
definition differing from that generally re- 
ceived your statement is contradictory. In 
philosophy, an accident is that which takes 
place without an efficient intelligent cause — 
without design. You say there is no such 
thing as that— "there is no accident." It 
would follow, that nothing happens without 
design — without an intelligent cause. But if 
you modify the definition so as to leave out 
intelligence, then your saying is that nothing 
happens without a cause, and we need not 
send to a distance for an intelligence which 
can say that. But your private definition 
of the word accident would be like my friend's 
spelling of the word fail. You are writing to 
English-speaking people, and we use the word 
accident to express our idea of something 
which happens (or is supposed to happen) 



THE FATALIST. 29 

without purpose or design, which implies in- 
telligence. "No accident, and no agency." 
An agent, if intelligent, is one who acts, either 
for himself or another; or we may speak of an 
act being done by the agency of some unin- 
telligent thing, used by an intelligent actor. 
Agency implies the operation of intelligence, 
as accident excludes the idea of intentional 
operation. When you say there is no acci- 
dent it implies that nothing is done without 
intelligent design; and when you say there 
is no agency it implies that all things happen 
without intelligent design. 

When you say there is no agency you assert 
that nothing is done by an intelligent being, 
either immediately, or mediately by the oper- 
ation of means used by that intelligence. 
But we know there is such a thing as intel- 
ligence, just as we know we exist. It seems 
to all men that intelligence is a factor, and 
has been a factor, in bringing to pass some of 
the things which happen. Tou must mean 
that this seeming is an illusion; that intelli- 
gence, while it thinks it is playing a part in 



30 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

the happenings of history, is in fact only be- 
ing played a part in these happenings, by 
something not intelligent which moves it. 
While the Calvinist conceives that the priinal 
cause which operates all things to certain re- 
sults is intelligent, you conceive that cause 
or those causes to be without intelligence. 
Yet you do not believe you may be dashed to 
pieces by the blind agency of nature. 

The assumption of the fatalist is that there 
inhere in the nature of things causes which 
must of necessity produce certain effects. 
Effects become causes, and there are conflict- 
ing causes; but the conflict becomes combina- 
tion, producing causes still certain in their 
effects. If we conceive or speak of a will, it 
is only the result of causes producing that 
will — is in fact not a will, but only an illusion. 
Suppose an intelligence knowing all causes, 
and foreseeing all effects, and the effects of 
these effects, as they become causes, and so 
ad infinitum, this might be the fatalist's god; 
but he would have no power to change the in- 
herent certainty of things, no power at all. 



THE FATALIST. 31 

He would not be omnipotent, but absolutely 
impotent. There would still be nothing con- 
tingent in the absolute sense. To my very 
finite apprehension, (which I thus expose) this 
kind of a god would be as useful, and practi- 
cally the same as the God of the Calvinist, if he 
has from all eternity bound his almighty pow- 
er and all things by absolute predestination. 
There is still another conception of God, 
which considers him as foreseeing all things 
from all eternity which shall ever come to pass ; 
but that he has not fore-ordained all things — 
only foresees them. And I am no more able 
than the skeptic to conceive how the practical 
situation is bettered by this explanation. Nei- 
ther of these conceptions of God is sustained 
by any thing in what believers receive as the 
word or revelation of God. The Bible no- 
where tells us that God has predestinated all 
things or that he foresees all things. 
. Now is the fatalistic idea consistent with 
the orthodox agnostic method? The agnostic 
says: "There are some things I know in spite 
of my name. There are some things I believe 



32 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

upon observation, which yet I may not say I 
know. And for the rest I may predicate noth- 
ing. I know that I am, because I am con- 
scious of it. I know there exists a universe 
in motion, because I observe it. I observe 
the motions of the universe, and thereupon I 
form in my mind certain beliefs." The liberal 
agnostic has faith to rely with care upon the 
observations of others. But beyond what 
he perceives and observes, and what he be- 
lieves has been observed, no orthodox agnostic 
will predicate any thing as knowledge. Well, 
as an agnostic, I perceive that I have intelli- 
gence, and I observe the manifestations of in- 
telligence in others. The intelligence which 
I perceive and observe is an attribute of a 
personal being. I have no knowledge of in- 
telligence existing otherwise. If it lies about 
loose, or floats in the elements, we have no 
information of such fact. The existence of 
intelligence without a personal being in which 
it inheres, is not only unknown, but unthink- 
able. I further observe that intelligence is 
able to set in motion causes which produce 



THE AGNOSTIC RULE. 33 

effects, certain in a sense either absolute or 
qualified. I observe that intelligence is able 
to interfere with the blind or unintelligent 
forces of nature, so as to change the certainty, 
or make uncertain the effects of these causes. 
The blind agency of nature which would, with- 
out such interference, "dash me in pieces," 
is made harmless by the interference of in- 
telligence. When we seek to know the pri- 
mal cause of any effect, we trace it either to 
the will of an intelligent being, or else we can- 
not find its first cause. You may say that 
when we have traced the effect back to the 
will of intelligence we still have not found 
the primal cause; that volition or will is the 
effect of some other cause or causes, leading us 
still to the unknown. But this is at best only 
conjecture — not perception or observation. It 
is in contradiction of perception and obser- 
vation. I say that all effects which are traced 
to primal cause are traced to intelligence; 
and that when you reach as cause the will of 
intelligent being you have found primal cause, 
so far as perception and observation can 
3 



34 LETTERS •TO IXGERSOLL. 

proceed. Back of this can be nothing better 
than conjecture, contradicting the results of 
scientific observation. The agnostic dare not 
more than say: " I do not know." 

The agnostic also knows by his own con- 
sciousness that he has volition or will — that 
this will is free. It may be iuduced, but not 
absolutely controlled, by motives. When I 
say that though a motive induces me to rise 
to my feet, yet I can remain sitting, that the 
consent of my will must first be obtained — 
that the initiative inheres in my will — I state a 
proposition which extends to all cases, however 
extreme. A threat to take my life may pre- 
vail to induce me to give my money to a rob- 
ber, but this is only because my will prefers 
to surrender the money rather than risk my 
life. It requires but little reflection to per- 
ceive that even in this extreme case my hand 
does not move, my person does not act, until 
my will directs the action. I am conscious 
that my will still has the power (abstractly) 
to refuse. And so long as my will does not 
consent, does not dictate the motion, my body 



THE AGNOSTIC RULE. J5 

does not move. That which I perceive in my- 
self I observe (though imperfectly) in others. 
This is as far as perception and observation 
can go, and may be called science. All be- 
yond this is at best only conjecture, not science 
or knowledge. 

Conjectures of unknowable things may be 
true or false. We cannot know. But plau- 
sible conjecture follows on in the direction 
which science has pursued to the limit of 
knowledge. The agnostic who says, " I do not 
believe that there is a God, or that there is no 
God — I do not know," has less excuse for 
assuming that the will is not free, but only 
the effect of motives. To the extent of his 
conscious perception, he knows that his own 
will is free. To the extent of his observation, 
the indications are that the will of others is 
like his own. A will that is only the effect of 
motives is no volition or will. Hence the 
Bible, very remarkably — written in fragments 
through so many ages, by so many different 
hands — scarcely ever speaks of a free will, 
but of the will. 



36 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

So, then, inasmuch as we find the will, which 
is an attribute of intelligence, is the only in- 
itiative cause — the starting-point in causation, 
so far as we can know by perception, or 
have scientific ground for belief through ob- 
servation — it is plausible conjecture at least 
that all things which happen are caused by 
the will of intelligence, as proximate or re- 
mote cause. Accident would be included in 
the latter. "We may reasonably believe, not 
absolutely but as plausible, that those things 
the initiative cause of which we cannot find 
in the will of any known intelligence, are 
caused by the will of unknown intelligence — 
not excluding the possibility of accident. If 
we proceed farther, and conjecture the exist- 
ence of one supreme intelligent Being, it does 
not follow that his will is the initiative or first 
cause of all things which happen; because 
he may have power to create, and may have 
created, other intelligent beings who have wills 
given or imparted by him, but wills of their 
own, which we call free wills. We here arrive 
again in the field of science. We know that 



ABSURD FATALISM. 37 

there are such beings, just as we know there 
are beings at all. There can be no such thing 
as moral qualities, unless there is a will in the 
constitution of intelligent beings not domi- 
nated by motives, but dominating motives. 

So when you say "that which happens 
must happen " you contradict your own per- 
ceptions and observations; for these tell you 
the fact is the reverse. And your better 
sense acts upon it when you denounce any 
kind of infamy or wickedness. Men whose 
minds have become unscrewed in some part, 
so as to believe either with the fatalist or Cal- 
vinist, only think that they so believe. The 
necessary consequence of the postulate " that 
every thing has been necessarily produced," 
is the justification of all things. Jesus Christ 
himself would be entitled to no more credit 
in respect to his life and death, and all that 
he was and is, than Caiaphas who demanded 
or Pilate who ordered the crucifixion, or Ju- 
das who was the betrayer. We have an in- 
tuitive apprehension that this is not true. 
You will agree with me, I presume, that in- 



38 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

gratitude and cruelty and treachery and un- 
due selfishness are wrong; and that the devo- 
tion of self to the well-being of others, and 
faithful devotion to friends, and gratitude and 
mercy and justice and honor and truth are 
right. You are extreme in your criticism 
and denunciation of hypocrisy, cruelty, intol- 
erance and tyranny. There can be no consist- 
ency in this if "that which happens must 
happen." This figment of the supposed be- 
lief of your brain is negatived by your wiser 
instinct. You say that Dr. Field " will admit 
that he who now persecutes for opinion's sake 
is infamous." Why so, if " that which happens 
must happen," and if, as you say again, " that 
which must be has the right to be?" Can 
right be infamous? To quote you again, "be- 
yond this, inconsistency cannot go." Why 
speak with abhorrence of the cruel tortures of 
the Inquisition, and the wicked slaughter of 
millions of human beings by wars, by relig- 
ious persecutions, and by ambitious lust of 
power? What of all these, if that which 
happens must happen, and that which must 



ABSURD FATALISM. 39 

be has a right to be? And what of all the 
cruelty, wickedness, and meanness of all the 
intelligent beings in the universe, if that 
which happens must happen, and that which 
must be has a right to be? 

You say you do not know whether there is 
a God or not, but you make no exception in 
respect to the God that may be when you say 
" that which happens must happen." So, then, 
if there is a God, he is subject to the same 
law of fate. Yet the ink does not dry on this 
confession of your faith, with the candid dec- 
laration that this must result in the justifica- 
tion of every individual, before you break 
forth again, page after page, in the most de- 
nunciatory condemnation of things which 
have happened, must have happened, and 
therefore have a right to happen. Do you 
denounce the right? or is the right wrong? 
No; you do not believe what you think you 
believe* 

Neither does your brother, the Calvinist, 
believe what he thinks he believes. He im- 
agines that he believes that God has predesti- 



40 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

nated from all eternity all things which ever 
come to pass or happen. But he prays to his 
God all the same, as if his prayers must not, 
of course, be in vain. He is conscious, too, 
that he can pray or refrain from praying. 
His instinct is wiser than his reason. 

But there is one essential point of inconsis- 
tency, in which you and the Calvinist agree. 
Cain killed Abel, they say, and you will admit 
that Guiteau killed Garfield. Questions of 
sanity aside, still as the Calvinist says, God 
predestinated both these murders ; so that you 
and he agree that Cain and Guiteau could not 
help it. It was God or fate that did the 
deeds. But when the punishments (of the 
Calvinistic creed) or the consequences (of 
your creed) follow these murders it is Cain 
that is sent to the land of wandering, and not 
God or fate; and it is Guiteau that suffers 
death. In both these cases the innocent suf- 
fer. Tou may impute the deed done to God 
or fate, but the suffering consequence cannot 
be got clear of in that way. The man may 
not be able to do for himself, but he must suf- 



ORIGIN OF CAUSES. 41 

fer for himself. That is a thing he can real- 
ize without any mystification. I rather gness 
you will take the part of Cain as against Abel, 
on religious grounds; but granting Gui- 
teau's sanity, you will not say he was unjustly 
punished. No; you are mistaken about your 
belief. Tour instinct contradicts your rea- 
son, and your instinct is right. 

These contradictions of what men vainly 
call reason, by a God-given faculty which I 
here call instinct, are many and common. 
Reason runs mad, and common sense instinct 
shoves it aside as a lunatic. If reason will be 
content to postulate those things only which 
are known to us, and cease the vain effort to 
think the unthinkable and know the unknow- 
able, it will find itself in line with the common 
sense on which we live and act. Common 
sense tells us that causes originate in the will 
of intelligence; that volition is not an effect, 
but is in its essential nature cause. This is 
the peasant's view of it, whether he can for- 
mulate an expression of his conception or not. 
Though a cause may spring from an effect, 



42 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

an effect operate as a cause, so that in one 
sense the same thing may be both an effect 
and a cause, yet cause as cause is as essen- 
tially different from effect as effect as any 
two things can be. They are logical oppo- 
sites. Original cause cannot be effect, of 
course. That would be a contradiction in 
terms; for if the cause is an effect, it cannot 
be original cause. Either there is no such 
thing as original cause, or there must be cause 
which is not an effect. The cause, then, which 
is an effect is not in its original nature cause. 
So of volition or will. To speak of a will 
which is not free is to speak of a will which 
is not a will. If the so-called will be the ef- 
fect of causes or motives outside the intelli- 
gence in which it inheres, it is not a will. 
Will is cause, and there is no cause other than 
secondary which is not the will of an intelli- 
gence, so far as we can perceive and observe. 
The notion that causes are without any or- 
igin, that all causes are the effects of other 
causes, running back to all eternity, is a mere 
fiction of imaginative reason. Our conscious 



COMMON SENSE. 43 

sense tells us that intelligent will is the origin 
of causes. It is the same sense which tells us 
that ingratitude is wrong, and that cruelty is 
wicked; that mercy is good, and gratitude is 
right, that there is right and wrong, that we 
can do right and refuse the wrong, that we can 
do wrong and forsake the right. 

Beason, when it meekly takes the common 
sense of mankind as its base of operations, may 
be able to discover truths unknown to common 
sense. And it may be able to unveil and 
make more clear the truths which sense al- 
ready apprehends. But when reason leaves 
this base of operations, as a rule it is not re- 
liable. If it tell me there cannot be, and 
never in the past could have been, a cause 
without a cause — I have not been there, and 
nobody has been there to observe, and rea- 
son cannot prove its assertion true. If it tell 
me that every effect must become cause and 
continue to operate through its effects becom- 
ing causes to all eternity — I have not been 
there, nor has anybody; there can be no ob- 
servation to prove the assertion; and we can- 



44 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

not know if it is true. I believe it is false. 
If reason tell me that when I raise my finger 
I set in motion a wave of force which must 
continue to roll on through immensity for- 
ever, I incline to think this wisdom is non- 
sense. No one has been there to see. It can- 
not be proved positively, whether we can 
prove its negative or not. If science proceed 
to divide matter until the scientist can no 
longer divide it, I am willing to accept its re- 
ports of results thus far, because it is obser- 
vation. But if science or reason assume to 
tell me that there is such a thing as an indi- 
visible atom — indivisible in an absolute sense 
— no man ever saw an atom, heard it, or tasted, 
smelled, or felt an atom ; and I can have no as- 
surance that any such thing as an absolutely 
indivisible atom exists. On the contrary, the 
plausible conjecture is, if it be not more than 
conjecture, that the particles of matter are in- 
finitely divisible. If infinity is unthinkable, 
yet so is the indivisibility of matter unthink- 
able, however minute the particles. 

The unthinkable is only that of which we 



COMMON SENSE. 45 

cannot conceive. God is no more inconceiv- 
able or incomprehensible than immensity and 
eternity. Yet we know that eternity and im- 
mensity are necessarily self -existent. If there 
were no God or universe, yet there would be 
eternal time and boundless space. 

To think sensibly, we must return to the 
platform on which Christ Jesus stood when he 
gave thanks to the Father and Lord of heaven 
and earth, that he has " hid these things from 
the wise and understanding," hidden them 
from the foolishness of the philosophers and 
scientists, and " revealed them unto babes " — 
that is, to the common sense of the peasant, 
and the rest of mankind who are not called 
"thinkers." We know that we exist, simply 
because we know it, we have a sense of it. We 
know there is right and wrong because we have 
a sense of it. The philosopher and peasant 
both have intuitive knowledge of both these 
things. We know it is not true that " all things 
which happen must happen." We have a 
sense of it. It would contradict our sense of 
will and our sense of right and wrong. We 



46 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

have a sense of inherent will, free in its essen- 
tial nature. Its freedom cannot be taken away 
or destroyed without destroying or suspending 
the will. It is freedom itself. God could not 
make the will not free. It is a contradiction 
in terms. We know that will operates as pri- 
mal cause, because we have a sense of it, just 
as we have a sense of our existence and of our 
intelligence. We realize by our inner con- 
sciousness that motives and temptations are 
only inducements. They do not compel the 
will, but only persuade it. The will can still 
choose or refuse. Whenever a man becomes 
unable to do this he is no longer in a normal 
condition. A compelled will is a contradic- 
tion in terms. 

The Hindoo metaphysician who denies real 
existence of any thing but an idea, reasons on 
the same plane with him who denies the exist- 
ence of a will which can operate as initiative 
cause. When the great First Cause, which is 
the will of Supreme Intelligence, creates a 
being in his own image, and endows that being 
with intelligent volition, without which the 



COMMON SENSE. 47 

creature could not bear the image of the Cre- 
ator, we have a being like God, with a will of 
his own. "Without this there could be no good 
or evil in morals; there could be no right and 
wrong; there could be no merit in virtue, no 
demerit in vice. The question may be: Is it 
better that the spiritual world should be a 
mere machine, like the material world, mov- 
ing only as it is moved; or that it should have 
a volition to initiate and carry on motion? 
We conceive that a Creator must of necessity 
make it (if at all) one way or the other. 
Which has he done? We may ask the ques- 
tion : Could God make a being endowed with 
volition — not a seeming volition, but real? I 
conceive that he could. But, on the other 
hand, we may ask: Could God create or im- 
part spirit to a creature, without a free will? 
What do we know of spirit? It is intelligent 
life. Can intelligent life exist without volition 
as an attribute of its nature? We may con- 
jecture that it could, but this would be no 
more than conjecture. We do not perceive 
or observe the existence of any such being. 



48 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

For all we know, the existence of such ideal 
being is impossible in the nature of things. 

The common sense of mankind, from the 
ignorant peasant to the most learned philoso- 
pher, recognizes the existence of spiritual vo- 
lition, and of right and wrong, so that even 
the philosopher who denies it in theory thinks 
and acts upon it in his life. He thinks it, and 
talks it, and acts it in spite of the delusion 
of his imagination. This is the revelation 
which God makes to the babes. It is not true 
that whatever happens must happen. There 
is intelligent agency; and unless all thirgs 
are caused by intelligent will, there is acci- 
dent. 

You seem opposed to hell — as frantically 
mad about it — as if your only chance to escape 
it were to think it out of existence. You pro- 
test with all the eloquence of Ingersoll against 
the hell of Calvin. But who can tell where 
the blind god of fate will go with us? Some- 
thing has made us, or else we have got into 
being without being made at all. It is no more 
miraculous or incredible or unthinkable for 



THE HELL OF FATE. 49 

us to continue in existence, or rise from the 
dead, than to have come into existence in the 
first instance. It may be as easy to pass into 
another existence as to have come into this. 
I agree with you — not that " there are no re- 
wards and no punishments" — but that both 
" are consequences." This is why belief is im- 
portant. Belief produces consequences. Be- 
lief induces — not compels — the will of man to 
do this or that. Hence the consequence of 
right belief may be right conduct; and the 
consequence of right conduct may be a happy 
result; and so on. 

But to switch back again onto your main 
track, though fate makes us do whatever we 
perform, so that we are not to blame, yet fate 
brings untold sufferings upon our innocent 
world as consequences. True, " whatever hap- 
pens must happen," but some of these hap- 
penings are very hell itself. And you, in your 
happy method of "driving fear out of the 
world," encourage us with the assurance that 
there can be no pardon. You say, in regard 
to the hypothesis of a future state: 



50 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

I have said a thousand times, and I say again, 
That we do not know, we cannot say, 

Whether death is a wall or a door— 
The beginning or end of a day— 

The spreading of wings to soar, 
Or the folding forever of wings — 

The rise or the set of a sun, 
Or an endless life that brings, 

Rapture and love to every one. 

Your view of the present condition of the 
world under the government of fate is ex- 
pressed thus: 

It seems to me impossible that life should be exceed- 
ingly joyous to any one who is acquainted with its mis- 
eries, its burdens, and its tears. I know that as darkness 
follows light around the globe, so misery and misfortune 
follow the sons of men. 

Then you say to Dr. Field, with respect to 
his God, just what you must say in respect to 
your own god of fate: 

Why should God permit the triumph of injustice? 
Why should the loving be tortured? Why should the 
noblest be destroyed ? Why should the world be filled 
with misery, with ignorance, and with want? What 
reason have you for believing that your God will do 
better in another world than he has done and is doing 



THE HEEL OF FATE. 51 

in this ? Will he be wiser ? Will he have more power ? 
Will he be more merciful ? 

Perhaps Dr. Field might reply: " My reason 
for believing that my God will do better in 
another world than in this is because God has 
promised to do so " — using the word " better " 
in the sense intended in your question. But 
what better can we expect of your god of fate? 
What has he promised? What hope does he 
hold out to the poor sufferer who is writhing 
in agony under the consequences of having 
done what he must have done, and therefore 
had a right to do? How shall this consola- 
tion "drive fear out of the world?" 

You say you would console the mother who 
bends with anxious heart and blinding tears 
over the grave of her erring and lost son, after 
this manner: 

My dear woman, there are no punishments, there are 
no rewards — there are consequences ; and of one thing 
you may rest assured, and that is that every soul, no 
matter what sphere it may inhabit, will have the everlast- 
ing opportunity of doing right. 

Kind in you to say that, just to comfort the 



52 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

poor mother! But if in this world " that which 
happens must happen," and every soul does 
not do right in this world, by what warrant 
do you promise better regulation or freedom 
of will in the world to come? But you are 
kindly using casuistic finesse upon the good 
woman. If the fact be so, that the son she 
weeps over has seduced and broken the heart 
of innocence, and then stained his hands in 
the blood of the heart he has broken, you be- 
lieve " that which happens must happen," and 
" that which must be has the right to be." It 
was therefore right that he should seduce in- 
nocence, break the confiding heart, and mur- 
der the victim. And the mother may rest 
assured that every soul will have the everlast- 
ing opportunity of doing what he must do. 
But while you take away the rewards and pun- 
ishments from the anxious mother's fears, you 
still leave the consequences. The mother 
may be aware that her son has been borne to 
that grave from the gallows, as consequence 
of the murder he has committed — though 
" that which happened must have happened," 



THE HELL OF FATE. 53 

and " that which must be has the right to be." 
What hope can you give us that this cruel fate 
will be less cruel in another world? 
You say, further: 

From certain acts flow certain consequences ; these 
consequences increase or decrease the happiness of man ; 
and the consequences must be borne. A man who has 
forfeited his life to the Commonwealth may be pardoned, 
but a man who has violated a condition of his own 
well-being cannot be pardoned — there is no pardoning 
power. The laws of the State are made, and being made, 
can be changed ; but the facts of the universe cannot be 
changed. The relation of fact to consequence cannot be 
altered. This is above all power. 

Again, you say: 

Whoever commits a crime against another, must, to 
the utmost of his power in this world, and in another, 
if there be one, make full and ample restitution, and in 
addition must bear the natural consequences of his of- 
fense. 

If he voluntarily " make full and ample res- 
titution," most men would be satisfied with 
that; and the Christian is taught to forgive 
him on repentance, whether he be able to make 
restitution or not. But your doctrine requires 



54 LETTERS TO INGEKSOLL. 

him to bear the natural consequences even if 
he repent and make full restitution. Revela- 
tion does teach that there is a Power which 
can release even from the natural consequences. 
You continue: 

No man can be perfectly happy, either in this world 
or in any other, who has by his perfidy broken a loving 
and a confiding heart. No power can step between acts 
and consequences — no forgiveness, no atonement. 

Who then, I pray, locks the gates of hell 
more securely than this against the egress of 
its prisoners? Your fate is more cruel than 
the God of the Bible (I do not say the God of 
Calvin), for our God has granted repentance 
and forgiveness. The atonement means what 
its etymology implies. Those who are at va- 
riance with God it makes at one with him. 
If our hearts hate God, the atonement is in- 
tended to induce us to love God. To love God 
is keeping his commandments, loving our fel- 
low-men. 

You complain bitterly that you should be 
judged for your belief. The Bible tells us 
over and over again that men shall be judged 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 55 

according to their works, and it never states 
any thing inconsistent with this, though it is 
a book of little books, written by the hands 
of many men, at times extending through 
many ages. As already hinted, the saving 
service of belief operates in this life, to save 
a man from evil works, and to induce him 
to good works. Thus it promotes his final 
salvation. And so of atonement, redemp- 
tion, regeneration, and all the means of sal- 
vation. Regeneration is to reverse the nat- 
ural or acquired inclination of man to do evil 
and forsake the good. A bad man can do good 
and refrain from evil; and continuance in such 
practice will gradually work a change of dis- 
position. But this is an uphill business. 
As a rule he will not persevere. Revelation 
teaches that there are many disembodied spir- 
its — spirits which perhaps never had bodies — 
who are actively engaged in tempting man to 
evil. And it needs no revelation to tell us 
that there are many tens of thousands of em- 
bodied spirits engaged in the same work, as 
industriously as any disembodied spirits we 



56 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

read about. There are embodied spirits also 
working for the salvation of men, but the bet- 
ter opinion is that the bad embodied spirits 
are in the majority, and have the advantage 
otherwise. Revelation offers a divine spirit- 
ual influence to help the man who seeks such 
help. Those who seek this help, as a rule, tes- 
tify that they receive it. You may say this 
is delusion, but your assertion is conjecture, 
arrayed against observation. The full effect 
of this spiritual power, according to the tes- 
timony of those who speak by observation of 
others, and by perception in themselves, is a 
change of heart, as they call it. By way of 
emphasis it is called regeneration, so com- 
pletely are the affections and spiritual powers 
of the man changed. This change has its 
consequences — good works. But after all, at 
the judgment we have no account of man be- 
ing examined upon his regeneration, much less 
his belief. He is not sworn on the state of 
his heart, as they did sometimes in the war of 
the rebellion. He is simply judged accord- 
ing to his works. When the apostles tell us 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 57 

of the saving power of faith it has reference 
to salvation from sin in this life. When it is 
written " he that believeth not shall be damned, 
— or condemned, which is what damned 
means — or judged, which is perhaps the right 
translation— it is a warning that unbelief (by 
one who hears the gospel) will tend to evil 
works, and so lead to condemnation. We are 
in a state of condemnation or damnation al- 
ready, as you testify when you say that "as 
darkness follows light around the globe, so 
misery and misfortune follow Ihe sons of men." 
Nearly all this misery has its first cause in the 
selfishness of mankind. Unselfishness is its 
remedy. Revelation teaches us a lesson which 
is simply divine itself, in its very essence, even 
if it were not historically true — as it is — that 
Jesus Christ came into the world to teach man 
how to cure this damnation, by unselfish de- 
votion to the good of others ; and by conform- 
ity to his environment, which is the will of 
God. So the Scripture says: "God sent not 
his son into the world to condemn the world ; 
but that the world through him mis'ht be 



58 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

saved. He that believeth on him is not con- 
demned " — has found the way of escape from 
the damnation of "misery and misfortune 
which follow the sons of men." " He that be- 
lieveth on him is not condemned; but he that 
believeth not is condemned already." This 
is his normal condition, and there is no way 
to get him out of it, " because he hath not be- 
lieved in the name of the only begotten Son 
of God." God cannot help it either. How 
can he get the man out of this damnation of 
hell, unless he can get the hell out of the 
man? 

You say somewhere: 

The first great step toward national reformation is 
the universal acceptance of the idea that there is no es- 
cape from the consequences of our acts. 

And again you say: 

No power can step between acts and consequences. 

The difference between your doxy and or- 
thodoxy is that yours gives no salvation by 
any means, while orthodoxy gives one means 
and only one — "believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ." To "believe on" him is everywhere 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 59 

in Scripture put for acceptance and adoption 
by the man, of the plan of salvation offered 
by the Son whom God sent into the world to 
save it from its damned condition. That plan 
is a plan of causes and effects, and leads and 
helps him to " cease to do evil, and learn to 
do well." If a man do not believe, he is not 
likely to accept and adopt this plan, and there 
is no other way to save him. Condemnation 
is his present condition; and if his future 
damnation be not a "consequence," it is for 
the want of a consequence. He is simply left 
as he is. Hence the apostle announced that 
" there is no other name under heaven, given 
among men, whereby we must be saved," but 
that of Jesus Christ. By this he meant sub- 
stantially the same as Jesus himself meant 
when he said, "Whosoever will come after me, 
let him deny himself, take up his cross, and 
follow me;" that is, follow the example of 
Jesus in all unselfishness and forgiveness 
and mercy, in long-suffering and kindness, in 
purity and meekness, in honor and honesty, 
that the follower may be made perfect in ev- 



60 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

ery good work, to do the will of God, the 
spirit of God working in him that which is 
well pleasing to God — that is, goodness as 
made manifest by Jesus Christ. 

So it all comes to works at last. The 
apostle who most emphasized justification by 
faith says: "Though I have all faith so that 
I could remove mountains, and have not char- 
ity, I am nothing." Then he tells us what he 
means by charity. No word in our language 
is sufficient to translate it. The Saviour says: 
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; 
but he that doeth the will of my Father which 
is in heaven. Many will say to me in that 
day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
thy name? and in thy name have cast out dev- 
ils ? " — must have had faith — " and in thy name 
done many wonderful works? And then will 
I profess unto them, I never knew you: de- 
part from me, ye that work iniquity." We 
may expect him to talk that way to religious 
persecutors; and all the more because they 
have given the enemy occasion to blaspheme 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 61 

by committing their crimes in the name of 
religion. 

Peter, who stood as high as any in the col- 
lege of apostles, said: "Of a truth I perceive 
that God is no respecter of persons: but in 
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh 
righteousness, is accepted with him." So Paul 
says : " Glory, honor, and peace, to every man 
that worketh good; to the Jew first, and also 
to the Gentile: for there is no respect of 
persons with God. . . . For not the hear- 
ers of the law [those who believe aright] are 
just before God, but the doers of the law 
shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, 
which have not the law [and of course no be- 
lief about it], do by nature the things con- 
tained in the law, these, having not the law, 
are a law unto themselves: which show the 
work of the law written in their hearts, their 
conscience also bearing witness," etc. And 
this, he says, shall be "in the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ 
according to my gospel." Again he tells us in 
substance that every man shall stand before 



62 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

the judgment-seat of Christ, to be judged of 
the things clone in the body, according to that 
he hath done, whether good or bad. And John 
in his apocalyptic vision says: "And I saw the 
dead, small and great, stand before God; and 
the books were opened: and another book was 
opened, which is the book of life: and the 
dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their 
works. And the sea gave up the dead which 
were in it; and death and Hades gave up the 
dead which were in them: and they were 
judged every man according to their works." 
And Christ himself again says: " The hour is 

coming, when all that are in the graves shall 
hear his voice, and shall come forth — they that 
have done good unto the resurrection of life, 
and they that have done evil unto the resur- 
rection of condemnation." 

Yet in the face of all these, and many sim- 
ilar declarations, and with nothing otherwise 
in the Bible, you say: 

According to your inspired book, according to your 
Christ, there is another procession, in which are the 



FINAL JUDGMENT. 63 

noblest and the best, in which you will find the won- 
drous spirits of the world, the lovers of the human 
race, the teachers of their fellow-men, the greatest sol- 
diers that ever battled for the right; and this proces- 
sion of countless millions, in which you will find the 
most generous and the most loving of the sons and 
daughters of men, is moving on to the Siberia of God, 
the land of eternal exile, where agony becomes im- 
mortal. 

And thereupon, with a humor never ex- 
celled in the cast of a boomerang, you ask: 

How can you, how can any man of brain or heart, 
believe this infinite lie ? 

Really the men of brain and heart will be 
embarrassed to answer your question. If 
they agree with you that your utterance is an 
infinite lie, you may complain that "it is not 
often that men of brain and heart speak of 
the unbeliever except in tones of reproach, 
contempt, and hatred." And if they give the 
opposite answer, you are already on the rec- 
ord that they are infinite liars. You give us 
the old conundrum: "If I say I lie, do I lie 
or do I not?" They must answer: "If you 
lie, you speak the truth; and if you speak the 



64 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

truth, you lie." It is a "consequence" — a 
thing from which there is no escape, neither 
in this world nor in the world to come. Yes, 
your judgment scene is so unlike those set 
forth by the Bible and by Christ that to at- 
tribute it to them — we cannot complain of 
your epithet. 

Your quotations from the Presbyterian con^ 
fession of faith may be accurate. I do not 
know. I do not read it any more than you 
read your Bible. I believe of that work of 
human reason as you do of the Bible : not only 
that it is not inspired by any good spirit, bnt 
that in part it is not true. But, while I do 
not see that you quote the Bible much, if at all, 
I observe that your representations of its teach- 
ings are utterly inaccurate. You say of Christ : 

After his resurrection, why did not some one of his 
disciples ask him where he had been? Why did he 
not tell them what world he had visited ? There was 
the opportunity to "bring lifeand immortality to light." 
And yet he was silent as the grave that he had left — 
speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away. 

How do you know that? By what warrant 



A CHILDISH COMPLAINT. 65 

do you say lie was " speechless as the stone ? " 
You of course mean that he is so represented 
in the New Testament. Yet it tells us that, 
after his resurrection, he showed himself to 
his disciples "by many infallible proofs" — 
"being seen of them forty days and sneaking 
of the tilings pertaining to the kingdom of God." 
He was not speechless in general; nor need 
we presume that he spake nothing of the 
particular things which you mention? He is 
represented as being quite as able to tell of 
these things before his death and resurrection 
as after — and as doing so. Yet you ask so 
pathetically : 

Was it not infinitely cruel to leave the world in 
darkness and doubt, when one word could have filled 
all time with hope and light?" 

On this point he spake more words than 
one, which are recorded. And how much 
more he may have taught during the years of 
his ministry before his crucifixion, and how 
much during forty days after his resurrection, 
we may estimate from the declarations of his 
5 



LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 



apostles. Your ideas on this subject must be 
very vague, even childish. 
You say to Dr. Field: 

As you have mentioned the apostles, let me call 
your attention to an incident. 

Then you proceed in your own way to tell 
a story of Ananias and Sapphira. If you 
tried to tell it truly, then we can never trust 
you as being able to tell the truth. If you 
did not endeavor to tell the truth, you are dis- 
credited for a darker reason. We have but 
one story of that transaction in the New Tes- 
tament, and no allusion to it anywhere else 
in Scripture. There is no tradition from 
which you could draw your version. Nothing 
can justify you, therefore, in contradicting or 
adding to that story, in your evidently uncan- 
did and apparently malicious version. You 
first represent that "the apostles, having noth- 
ing themselves, conceived the idea of having 
all things in common." The account has 
nothing of this; but represents it as a volun- 
tary act of religious enthusiasm. They at 
first brought the money to the apostles for 



HE BEATS ANANIAS. 67 

distribution, which "was made to every man 
according to his need." The apostles soon 
declined to be burdened with this service, 
and said, "It is not reason that we should 
leave the word of God, and serve tables; " and 
they told the people to select seven men such 
as they might choose, of honest report, etc., 
whom they might appoint over this business — 
saying that they themselves would give their 
services continually to the ministry of the 
word and prayer. When Ananias hypocrit- 
ically pretended to have given all the price of 
his land, Peter tells him that he was under no 
obligation to sell his property at all; and 
after he had sold it he was not required to 
give all or any part of the money. " While it 
remained, was it not thine own? and after it 
was sold, was it not in thine own power?" 
"Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to 
the Holy Ghost?" "Thou hast not lied unto 
men, but unto God." It was for lying hypoc- 
risy that Peter reproved him. He made no 
threat of punishment; but Ananias fell down 
and expired. You say: " Whereupon God the 



68 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

compassionate struck him dead! " And at the 
conclusion you say: "Certainly murder is a 
greater crime than mendacity." Whom do 
you accuse of murder— Peter or God? Sup- 
pose you were retained to defend Peter on a 
charge of murder in this transaction. He 
only reproves the man for lying and hypoc- 
risy, and the man falls down dead. You 
would say it was heart disease; and at all 
events Peter did nothing to kill him — that 
Peter did no wrong at all. But is it God you 
accuse of murder? Well, he takes away the 
life of every man and woman sooner or later. 
It is madness to complain. You also say: 
"As soon as the corpse was removed, the 
apostles sent for his wife." Not a word of 
truth in that. According to the account, she 
came without being sent for; and seems to 
have spoken of the matter first — for it says, 
"and Peter answered unto her," when he told 
her what had occurred, and what should be- 
fall her. Peter's words would not kill her; 
and the "murder" every lawyer and every 
man of sense would say was "the act of God." 



ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA, 69 



Such is a specimen of the inaccuracy of your 
statements and the folly of your reasoning! 

But still, prince of reasoners! what of it 
all? Suppose Peter robbed those people of 
their money, and then took their lives. Why 
do you find fault, when "that which happens 
must happen," and "that which must be has 
a right to be." Does the case of Ananias 
and Sapphira have any peculiarity about it 
which touches a sympathetic cord in your nat- 
ure, more than others? 

But let us speak seriously about this. Sup- 
pose the account is a fiction. Then we have 
the case of a pious lie prepared by presum- 
ably some hypocrite, to discourage lying and 
hypocrisy! Or possibly a liberal German 
critic may suppose some process of tra- 
ditional evolution by which it got into exist- 
ence without intentional fraud. This would 
indicate that lying and hypocrisy were held 
in abhorrence by these primitive Christians. 
But suppose the narrative of this incident is 
true. Then Ananias and Sapphira stand be- 
fore us as simply a pair of lying hypocrites, 



70 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

professing a high degree of devotion. They 
were struck dead — not by an apostle, but by a 
supernatural power. As that power has ab- 
solute authority over life and death, if the 
man and wife had suddenly died that day 
without fault or rebuke, would you be so 
childish as to complain of a thing the like of 
which so often befalls the most innocent? 
And if the most innocent may so fall under 
the hand of God or in the course of nature, 
why complain if the like befall the guilty? 
Do these victims excite your sympathy the 
more because of their lying hypocrisy? 

You are a reasoner! Let us look at some 
more of your reasoning. You say: 

According to your creed — according to your Bible — the 
same Being who made the mind of man, who fashioned 
every brain, and sowed within those wondrous fields the 
seeds of every thought and deed, inspired the Bible's 
every word, and gave it as a guide to all the world. 
Surely the book should satisfy the brain. And yet there are 
millions who do not believe the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. 

What sort of reasoning is this? The Bible 



BEDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. 71 

does not teach that God " sowed within those 
fields the seeds of every thought and deed," 
and some very orthodox do not hold that it 
teaches the inspiration o£ every word; but 
suppose the latter were so, would it follow 
that "the book should satisfy the brain?" 
There is a boy of five or ten years of age, 
whose parents are, in a good sense, the authors 
of his brain — good brain as Iugersoll's, accord- 
ing to his age. His parents teach him in va- 
rious ways. Does the parent's teaching have 
to satisfy the boy's brain? Shall that brain 
refuse the teaching of the parents because that 
boy's brain is not satisfied with it? It is be- 
cause that brain does not know, and is adapt- 
ed to learning, that the teaching is offered to 
it. The parents give that child a book. They 
may have made it themselves — it matters not. 
Is "it presumable that book is not true, con- 
taining the wisdom of age, because it does not 
satisfy the brain of the growing child? You 
presume because God made a brain capable of 
learning, therefore it is a brain that should 
know all things without learning. The 



72 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

book is given to teach the brain. If yon 
should have a son who, having read your writ- 
ings, should not believe them to be true, would 
it follow that your writings are not true? 
There is the father of the boy and the father 
of the book. Surely the book should satisfy 
the boy! This is your reasoning! God made 
man's mind, or imparted it, to learn, to investi- 
gate, and to think. And to help him to knowl- 
edge, he gives him a book in which he reveals 
some truths for his learning. Shall the brain 
of the creature reject the revelation of the 
Creator simply because the brain is not satis- 
fied with it? But if some brains are not satis- 
fied with the book, shall other brains who are 
satisfied with it reject the book because some 
are not? Some brains are in the mad-house; 
some brains are dull; some brains are con- 
ceited; some brains become crazed by "the 
oppositions of science, falsely so called;" 
some brains are great thinkers, but yet em- 
ploy their time and powers in the careful in- 
vestigation of questions of natural history, 
astronomy, geography, geology, mathematics, 



IMPERFECT BRAIN. 73 

languages, politics, architecture, engineering, 
law, medicine, money-making, novel-writing, 
and any thing else than that book which is 
commended to them as the revelation of God. 
Man's brain is not made perfect. That is just 
what we assert. The book, to the extent of 
its inspiration, if imperfect in any sense or 
respect, is far less so than the brain. It is 
because of the imperfection of the brain in its 
capacity and knowledge that the book is giv- 
en. The gift of the book implies a recogni- 
tion of the imperfection of the brain. God 
foresaw the imperfection of the brain, for he 
predestinated the same. But if there was 
ever an imperfection of man's brain which in- 
finite wisdom could not foresee, it is that there 
should be a brain so imperfect as to think that 
the brains of all men must be satisfied with 
the revelation of God, and otherwise we are 
to discredit the revelation. 

You have a versatile brain, which can think 
many ways in the same writing. On the very 
same page from which I have made this last 
quotation, you say, as before quoted: "You 



74 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

must know that perfectly honest men differ on 
many important subjects." And you speak of 
"honest Democrats and sincere Republicans," 
as quoted above; and say further: " Educated 
men, presidents of colleges, cannot agree upon 
questions capable of solution — questions . 
that the mind can grasp," etc. Well, then, 
if the reason of man is so imperfect, what 
argument is it against the book of God if 
some of these always differing brains are not 
satisfied with God's book? You instance 
Humboldt and Darwin. Did these brains dif- 
fer with no other equally good brains about 
any thing but the book of God? There must 
have been some other great brains before Dar- 
win. And yet Darwin differs with about all 
the great brains that went before him, concern- 
ing the matters of his own special investiga- 
tions. He differs with cotemporary brains; 
and depend upon it, he differs with the brains 
which shall enter his favorite field in time to 
come. Natural science is about as certainly 
changeable from age to age as the book of 
God is unchangeable. Is the error or insurn- 



A CRAZY BRAIN. 75 

ciency in the book of nature, or in the brain 
of the investigators ? Did not the same cause 
or Creator make the book of nature that made 
the brain of man? Surely, then, should not 
the book satisfy the brain? "Yet there are 
millions who do not believe " what other mill- 
ions do believe about the book of nature. 
"Some of the greatest and best have held" 
for true what some of the greatest and best 
have held "in contempt." What do we read 
in your rapid writings ? Words, words. 

I admit there are some things (supposable) 
which Infinity cannot do. How could Infinite 
Wisdom give us a book which would satisfy 
the brain which thinks that " that which hap- 
pens must happen," and " that which mast be 
has a right to be," and that yet it is infamous to 
persecute for opinion's sake; a brain which 
thinks " all things have been necessarily pro- 
duced," and that this must result in the justi- 
fication of every individual, and yet raves 
about "the savagery of the Inquisition," the 
triumph of injustice, the torture of the loving, 
the destruction of the noblest, the world filled 



LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 



with misery, with ignorance and want — when 
all these happenings must happen, have a 
right to happen, and are justifiable? A book 
which should satisfy that brain is unthinkable. 

How could Infinite Wisdom make a book 
that would satisfy a brain which can discourse 
as follows: 

I agree with you that the world is a mystery, not 
only, but that every thing in nature is equally mysteri- 
ous, and that there is no way of escape from the mys- 
tery of life and death. To me, the crystallization of the 
snow is as mysterious as the constellations. 

And then, only ten lines farther on, says: 
It is impossible that man should be convinced by 
any evidence of the existence of that which he cannot in 
any measure comprehend. 

Can that brain comprehend the mystery of 
life and death, of the crystallization of the 
snow, and the mystery of the constellations? 
If so, then how are these things mysteries to 
that brain? If uot, then is it impossible for 
that brain to be convinced of the existence of 
that which we call life and death, and the 
crystallization of the snow T , and the existence 
of the constellations? There is not even 



GOD OF CALVIN. 77 

method in the madness of that afflicted brain 
which is lodged in the head of Ingersoll. 

I might go on, as it were without limit, 
quoting your self-contradictions, as well as 
your many inaccuracies of fact. You cannot 
claim the champion's belt of the intellectual 
prize ring, since you declined to put on the 
gloves with Father Lambert. And so I have 
, no challenge for you. You fight Calvinism 
and confound it with the Bible. I doubt if 
you know the difference. Shall I quote you 
once more? You say to good Dr. Field: 

You admit that the God of nature — that is to say, 
your God — is as inflexible as nature itself. Why should 
man worship the inflexible? Why should he kneel to 
the unchangeable ? You say that your God " does not 
bend to human thought any more than to human will." 

If that is the God of the Calvinist, he is 
not the God of the Bible. There is a sense 
in which the God of the Bible is unchange- 
able. He is the same God, yesterday, to-day, 
and forever. But according to the Bible, he 
is a living God, who changes his purposes and 
his decrees, from time to time, according to 



78 LETTEES TO IXGERSOLL. 

the exigences of the occasion. If there is 
any thing in all the universe which lives and 
changes not, man has not observed it or per- 
ceived it. According to the Bible, God has 
not made a set of universal decrees, to bind 
the universe and himself fast in fate. As any 
intelligent being, ruling over other intelligent 
beings, would be like to do, he fore-ordains 
such things as he pleases, and at such times 
as he pleases. So far as unintelligent nature 
alone is concerned, he may (for all we know) 
have no occasion ever to change or modify a 
decree. But if he has made intelligent creat- 
ures, with wills, these wills are in their very 
nature free. In the nature of things he could 
not, as we must conceive, know what these 
free wills may do. This assumption might be 
conjecture only, if he had not positively as- 
sured us of the fact in that which we accept 
as his revelation. The Bible often represents 
the purposes of God toward individuals and 
peoples as being changed because of the ac- 
tion of the free will of those creatures whom 
he has endowed with such will — and of his 



GOD OF THE BIBLE. 79 

will yielding to their prayers. To change his 
purpose of necessity implies that he did not 
absolutely foresee the thing which worked 
that change. There are many such passages — 
it is the whole tenor of Scripture. I will 
quote one passage. " At what instant I shall 
speak concerning a nation, and concerning 
a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, 
and to destroy it; if that nation, against which 
I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I 
will repent of the evil that I thought to do 
unto them." (Jer. xviii. 7, 8.) The commen- 
tator may contradict this, and say that it is 
"speaking after the manner of men." One 
set must say that God knew from before the 
foundation of the world that the nation 
would turn, and so he would not do what he 
only pretended to think to do unto them. 
And the other set make it only in sound 
stronger, by putting predestination instead of 
foreknowledge. I am glad God does speak to 
us after the manner of men, so that we can 
understand his meaning. Though there were 
fatalists in the land where the Bible was writ- 



80 LETTERS TO 1NGEHSOLL. 

ten, long before the time of Christ, and pre- 
tending to be teachers of religion; and 
though since the time of Christ the Church 
has been infested with fatalism, at least from 
the days of Augustine; and though on the 
infidel theory of the origin of the Bible, its 
several books were written by uninspired men 
no better than what we would now call the 
doctors of divinity — yet not one of all these 
writers ever tells us that God from all eter- 
nity either predestinated or foresaw "all 
things whatsoever shall come to pass." Not 
one of them ever speaks of " the eternal now " 
of the Omniscient, which is not only a contra- 
diction in its own terms, but a necessary con- 
tradiction of the fiction of the brain which 
those who propound this impossible idea in- 
tend to explain by it. The Bible sets before us 
no delusion as to the reality of our lives. It 
speaks of time not as a thing which seems to 
be, but as a thing which is — just as we are 
conscious of the fact. According to the 
Bible, we are living together and working to- 
gether with God. He is as able to decree a 



GOD OF THE BIBLE. 81 

thing now as he ever was. He holds all his 
decrees in his own power. The Bible extols 
the knowledge of God, without ever hinting 
at his foreknowledge of all things, either from 
all eternity or from any date. It speaks of 
his foreknowledge of some things, just as if he 
did not foresee every thing; of his predestina- 
tion of some particular thing mentioned, just 
as if he had not predestinated all things. 
And in mentioning-, and emphasizing the as- 
surance, that these particular things were pre- 
destinated and foreknown, never once does 
the speaker or writer add, "for God fore- 
knows all things" or "has fore-ordained all 
things." Whatever may have been the in- 
dividual opinions or notions of the several 
writers as to God's foreknowledge of all 
things, or fatalism, the superintending spirit 
in no case suffers them to pat down in his 
word that dogma ; but they tell us simply and 
plainly of God's changes of purpose because 
of some action of the volition of man. 

The good men who have presumed to tam- 
per with God's revelation, and reverse its 



82 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

meaning and its express language, have done a 
great wrong. You quote from the confession: 

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his 
glory, some men and angels are predestined unto ever- 
lasting life, and others fore-ordained unto everlasting 
death. 

Yet the men who teach this acknowledge 
that every word of the following is inspired: 
"As I live saith the Lord, I have no pleasure 
in the death of him that dieth, but rather 
that he should turn from his ways and live." 

The evil effects of such presumption are 
well manifested in your writings. You of 
course have an advantage of the man who 
proposes to bow to Omniscience, and contra- 
dicts the utterances of the Omniscient. You 
make religion and God odious to our common 
sense, and to our conscience, by quoting such 
utterances. They make God a monster, by 
contradicting his word ; and you hold up these 
contradictions as if they were true instead of 
false representations of Scripture teachings. 
Nor has the Arminian any more right to con- 
tradict what he accepts as God's word than 



GOD OF THE BIBLE. 83 

the Calvinist. That word just as plainly tells 
us that God is from time to time disappointed 
by the perverse actions of men — does not 
foresee them — as it tells us that he does not 
desire the damnation of any man, but the sal- 
vation of all men. If they cannot understand 
how this is consistent with the Omniscience 
of God, the fault is in their conception of Om- 
niscience. They ought not to think they are 
capable of telling how much Omniscience 
should know. God cannot foresee as certain 
that I shall be drowned, unless it in fact is 
certain — on the same principle that he cannot 
make a rod three feet long, without two 
ends — because it is a contradiction. If God 
could, and if he in fact does, foresee every 
cause which shall ever be brought to operate, 
in the way of inducement or otherwise, on my 
will, yet all this would not enable him to fore- 
see what my will in every case will do, unless 
my will is the servant of motives — and this 
last is fatalism. Put fatalism into any shape 
which Satan can invent — whether in the shape 
of universal decrees, or universal foreknow!- 



84 LETTERS TO INGEESOLL. 

edge, or the dominance of motives over will — it 
all comes at last to your creed of " that which 
happens must happen." It gives the lie to 
the Almighty, who has revealed to man, in his 
innate sense as well as in the Bible, that there 
is such a thing as the contingent; that it is 
not in vain to pray to God; that it is not in 
vain to endeavor; that it is not in vain to 
pray to man, not in vain to exercise the will. 
In spite of any philosophy, in spite of any 
theology, every one of the doctors of philos- 
ophy and divinity believe there is such a 
thing as contingency. He lives, moves, and 
has his very being in this belief, simply 
because he knows it. He knows it just 
as he knows his own being, his will, his 
thoughts, his feelings. If there is no such 
thing as a contingency (in the most absolute 
sense) there is not a free thing in the uni- 
verse. Without this, "that which happens 
must happen;" and if so, I cannot deny that 
" that which must be has a right to be." Per- 
haps it were quite as well to say it "has a 
wrong to be." For what difference can there 



LIGHT OF DA Y. 85 

be between right and wrong? There is no 
right and wrong, if that which happens must 
happen. God may know all things; but it 
does not follow that he knows things which are 
not. If he knows a tiling, that thing is, was, 
or certainly is to be. Assume that he knows 
all things which shall ever come to pass, and 
you are back in fatalism — the whole drama of 
life being a play in which the seeming players 
are only puppets that are played. Such is 
the result of universal decrees, universal fore- 
knowledge, or fatalism. 

That mental phenomenon which you and 
the philosophers, metaphysicians, and theolo- 
gians fondly call reason, is chaos — without 
form and void — involved in utter darkness, 
and without life. God says, "Let there be 
light;" and the very birth of life gives light. 
The life gives motion, and the motion light, 
and God sees the light that it is good — not 
that it is perfect. There is better light above 
the firmament; but it is unseen, nor do its 
rays yet penetrate the heavy clouds that 
brood over the lower world. Such is the 



86 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

light of nature, which shines in the minds 
and hearts of beings conscious of existence 
and observant of their surroundings — con- 
scious of volition, of thought, and feeling, 
and with a conscience of right and wrong. 
The motions of life give them light. In the 
fullness of time the Spirit of God, which was 
brooding over primeval chaos while as yet all 
was dark, takes away the heavy clouds which 
have clothed the infant world in the doubt of 
the first, the second, and the third day; and 
the sun in all the glory of his great light 
gives day that is day indeed. And God set 
the moon also in the firmament of the heav- 
ens, with her cold reflected light, to mitigate 
the darkness of the night. "He made the 
stars also." So God has been pleased to 
drive away the clouds which envelop the 
spiritual universe, and let in upon this lower 
world the warming, life-giving beams of the 
Sun of Righteousness, giving to man assur- 
ance of a day that is day indeed. And he 
has given us the Church of Christ, as a moon 
with her reflected light. And there are stars 



LIGHT OF DAY. 87 

which through the ages have, beyond the 
Church, shone on all the lands the light of 
heaven. 

• Why so-called reason rejects the light is 
the mystery of mysteries. "And this is the 
condemnation" — this is the calamity which 
involves the sons of men — "that men love 
darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds are evil." 



lECO^D lETTER. 

In your first letter to Dr. Field there is a 
short passage which seems to have been over- 
looked by those who have replied to or re- 
viewed you. Following upon the avowal that 
it is your object to drive fear out of the world, 
you ask the question: 

Does it relieve mankind from fear to believe that 
there is some God who will help them in extremity ? 

I answer that such is the testimony of many 
thousands now living in the world around us; 
such is the recorded testimony of many in all 
the ages of which we have the record; and 
there are other thousands of the current time 
who should and would so testify, if they were 
not deterred from speaking to the point either 
by shame or some notion of propriety which 
induces them to hide their convictions from 
the public. You continue: 



WANTS AND PIETY. 89 

What evidence have they on which to found such a 
belief? When has God listened to the prayer of any 
man? 

Every day and every hour, is the confident 
testimony of these same living witnesses. If 
yon were to examine every member of the com- 
munity under oath, yon would be astonished 
to find how many who hide these things with- 
in their heart, must give concurrent testimony 
with those whom you perhaps regard as cranks. 

You continue, further: 

The water drowns, the cold freezes, the flood de- 
stroys, the fire burns, the bolt of heaven falls — when 
and where has the prayer of man been answered ? 

Well sir, if you, instead of the Lord Al- 
mighty, had made the worlds, and set in order 
the course of nature, perhaps it would be so 
that water would not drown, cold would not 
freeze, floods would never destroy, or fire burn, 
and no bolt of heaven would ever fall. And 
if all things were ordered by a like rule, the 
pious might be at a loss what to pray for. 
Unless you made some effects without causes, 
I am not sure there would be any piety. 



90 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

What would man seek God for, if the man were 
without wants? For the good of others, do 
you say ? But the others would be fully sup- 
plied with all good — where would be the call 
for unselfishness? Would man seek God to 
thank him for his goodness in granting him a 
being without any pain, sorrow, or want? 
Man would know nothing of these things; and 
would need a special inspiration to give him a 
conception of the evil for exemption from 
which he should give God thanks. 

Have you ever considered philosphically 
whether pleasure is possible without pain? 
Hunger and thirst are pains, and without them 
you could have no pleasure in eating and drink- 
ing. All the cravings of your being are in the 
nature of pains; and your joy in their grati- 
fication is in proportion to the intensity of the 
craving. And however unselfish and pure the 
cravings may be, the same rule governs. What 
would life be without pains? "And desire 
shall fail, because man goeth to his long 
home." This is the pathetic description of 
the condition of one who is about to die. 



HORRORS OF SLAVERY. 91 

God lias not taught us that he in his power 
and wisdom could make hills without valleys, 
or pleasures without pains, or joys without 
sorrows. I refer to this life, and am not un- 
dertaking to penetrate the mysteries of the 
metaphors used by inspiration concerning the 
future bliss or woe of a life to come. You dis- 
close in many utterances, flashing with all the 
brilliant disorder of the lightnings of chaos, 
that you look upon pain and sorrow in this life 
as only evils. I confess that I am not so wise 
as to be able to tell what measure of pain and 
sorrow is best for the individual or the aver- 
age man or the human race. You are fond of 
illustrating by the real and supposed horrors 
of slavery, as it lately existed in the States of 
the South. Well, I may say for myself that 
I had expressed my boy opinion in favor of 
gradual emancipation while living in the South 
more than ten years before the war of the great 
rebellion. Yet the fact is well known that the 
condition of the slave in the South was a great 
improvement upon the condition of the same 
race in Africa. Of course it was only the hu- 



92 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

manity of the English and New English slave- 
traders which inspired them to purchase slaves 
from the African chiefs, bring them through 
the horrors of the " middle passage," and sell 
them to the Southern planters. Indeed, the 
white slaves who struggle for life in the slums 
of European cities and in New York this day 
are in a condition more deplorable than was 
that of the Southern slave. Turn your thun- 
ders loose upon these existing evils, now that 
slavery no longer continues in these States. 
And open your pocket as well — it is deep and 
well filled — open it to the starving women and 
children who are perishing around you. 

But nothing is made perfect or of any ac- 
count at all without suffering more or less, so 
far as we know. Of course I speak of senti- 
ent creatures. Yet the principle is so gener- 
al, not to say universal, that its semblance is 
carried into the dead material things of nature. 
We plow the ground to make it bring forth 
fruits; we refine the gold and silver by fire; 
we melt and roll and hammer the iron. " The 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 



DOES GOD SUFFER? 93 

together until now." Everywhere there is la- 
bor and groans and heavings; and these bring- 
forth the beauty and glory and honor of the 
universe of God. " It became him, for whom 
are all things, and by whom are all things, in 
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the 
captain of their salvation perfect through suf- 
ferings." Could God have made it otherwise? 
I do not know, but cannot perceive that he 
could. I do not see how he could have heroes 
without dangers, or fortitude without pain, or 
virtuous merit without possible vice and 
temptation to evil. But I am not wise enough 
to draw a line, and say how much pain and sin 
and sorrow God shall permit. Is God himself 
free from all pain, sorrow, and suffering? Of 
my own wisdom I cannot tell. Revelation 
represents him as being grieved, and as angry, 
and as having pleasure. Grief is painful, an- 
ger is not a happy mood, and pleasure implies 
its possible opposite. Some theologians say 
that he is of necessity infinitely happy; and if 
they are right, yet they give us this out of the 
stores of their own wisdom. I must say here 



94 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

again that it is remarkable that the book of 
little books, written by so many different theo- 
logians at so many different times through the 
ages, nowhere utters this truth, if it is true, 
that the Almighty of necessity is supremely 
happy, while all his creation has sorrow as well 
as joy. It represents him as sympathizing 
with and pitying his children, as loving good 
and hating evil, and as working together with 
us for the betterment of the condition of his 
creation. It does not represent God as without 
feeling, any more than as without personal be- 
ing and life. None of us can tell, as I suppose, 
how far God could, if he would, dispense with 
pain and sorrow in the best possible govern- 
ment of his universe. The question pertains 
to the " secret things which belong to the Lord 
our God. The things which are revealed be- 
long unto us and to our children." 

I am satisfied God did not make the universe 
perfect, whether he could or not; and I am not 
disposed to call him to account for what he has 
done. The disorders in the universe, moral 
and physical, real or supposed, do not lead me 



IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 95 

to deny the existence of a supernatural power, 
ruling over all tilings. And so the old argu- 
ment stands as well as ever. The Supreme 
Being has seen all the evil things which men 
have done, presumably with power to prevent 
them, and did not do so. If he ordered Israel 
to exterminate the Canaanites, I accept it as 
conclusive that it was right. Many infidels 
question if it is at all a blessing to live, and 
your own utterances look in that direction. 
If, then, life is not worth living, we have little 
cause to complain when God takes it away. If 
it is the liver himself who, by his misconduct, 
has made life undesirable, he at least may not 
complain if the Giver of life shall withdraw 
the gift which is thus abused. But God takes 
away the lives of all the children of men, good 
and bad, sooner or later; and we will not argue 
with him who complains of this prerogative of 
God. In his wisdom, God takes life at all 
ages. If, therefore, he had destroyed all the 
Canaanites by pestilence, men of sober minds 
would find no fault. So the only question re- 
maining relates to the policy of his delegating 



96 LETTERS TO 1NGERS0LL. 

the execution of his will to the people of Is- 
rael. If God did in fact give the order, it was 
right for Israel to obey it; and God had as per- 
fect a right to destroy the people by war as by 
pestilence. If in fact he did not so order, we 
may not complain of him for what he did not 
do, unless we complain of his inaction in not 
saving those whom he had a right to destroy. 
But to return to your question in respect to 
prayer and its answers. You intimate that 
God does not hear and answer prayer, because 
when so many people prayed for the life of 
President Garfield his life was not saved. "We 
may add that a great proportion of those who 
die are taken away in spite of the earnest 
prayers of pious people. God has decreed 
that man shall die, and cannot grant all the 
requests of those who pray otherwise. Men 
often ask for other things which are not grant- 
ed. But is it therefore in vain to pray? 
There is the President. Many prayers are 
offered to him. Some he does not grant. Is 
it therefore in vain to ask any thing of the 
President? 



ingersoll's prayer. 97 

Eev. Joseph Cook tells us that you and oth- 
ers once prayed Congress to repeal or modify 
certain laws. Congress did not grant your pe- 
tition. Is it therefore in vain to petition Con- 
gress ? Congress heard your prayer, and con- 
sidered it — differed in opinion with you, and 
refused your request. Even so God heard the 
thousands of prayers which ascended for the 
life of President Garfield. No doubt he con- 
sidered them. If any of these prayers were 
without qualification as to the propriety of the 
restoration of the President, God must have 
differed in opinion with the petitioners. But 
God's refusal to grant these prayers does not 
prove that he was indifferent to them. The 
refusal of your petition to Congress does not 
prove that your name will have no influence 
if signed to another petition asking some oth- 
er thing. 

Some of the members of Congress are 
tough citizens; but most of them have wives 
and daughters and sisters. Your petition 
would seem, from the report of the commit- 
tee thereon, to pray for the repeal or modifi- 
7 



yo LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

cation of the statutes which forbid the use of 
the United States mails for the circulation 
of obscene pictures, prints, and literature. 
Whether you did this in the interest of purity 
and liberty — of which you talk so beautifully 
as occasion calls — I do not know. But you 
stirred up a prejudice in the hearts of those 
members of Congress who have daughters and 
sisters. The slime bugs had been sending 
obscene pictures and literature through the 
mails, in a manner similar to that used for 
business circulars. They could not get the 
names of young girls from the city directories; 
but they would get the catalogues of female 
schools, and so procure the names. And 
then the slime bugs would send obscene 
prints and literature to these young girls 
through the mails. This was done to such an 
extent that some of the institutions deemed it 
best to cease printing catalogues. Steps were 
also taken to punish the violators of the law 
which forbids the prostitution of the postal 
service to the work of seduction and corrup- 
tion. And thereupon it seems that you and 



ingersoll's PR a yer. 99 

other perhaps equally good citizens having 
" honest opinions," prayed Congress to repeal 
or modify the law. You might have known 
that your petition would fire up a prejudice 
not exclusively puritanical in the minds of 
the family men in Congress, and cause them 
to "look upon you as a monster because of 
your unbelief" in those prohibitory statutes. 
Your excellent friend Dr. Field was not there 
to apologize for your idiosyncrasies. His 
pure heart, swelling with the charity which 
thinketh no evil, would have got in the lead 
of his head. He would have remembered 
"the long evening he spent at your house 
in Washington ; " "your conversation which 
then and at other times interested him 
greatly," as he "recognized at once the ele- 
ments of your power over large audiences, in 
your wit and dramatic talent — personating 
characters and imitating tones of voice and 
expressions of countenance." So "child-like 
and bland," the spirit of this learned doctor 
of divinity who " found with you many points 
of sympathy " — who " does not hesitate to say 



100 LETTERS TO INGEESOLL. 

that there are many things in which he agrees 
with you, in which he loves what you love 
and hates what you hate!" So that he has 
discovered that " you love truth and hate ly- 
ing and hypocrisy " — that " above all you hate 
every form of injustice and oppression." 
"And yet," says he, "you do not hate op- 
pression more than I, nor love liberty more. 
Nor will I admit that you have any stronger 
desire for that intellectual freedom, to the at- 
tainment of which you look forward as the 
last and greatest emancipation of mankind." 
Now as your petition to Congress was in the 
interest of the liberty of the slime bugs — to 
remove a puritanical restriction which ham- 
pers the full exercise of their "intellectual 
freedom to the attainment of which you look 
forward as the last and greatest emancipation 
of mankind " — you should have procured the 
signature of the cultured and gifted doctor 
to your prayer of the oppressed for the free 
use of the Government mails in the circula- 
tion of literature and works of art which 
priestcraft calls obscene. 



ingersoll's prayer. 101 

But while to the pure and child-like Dr. 
Field all things are pure, the members of 
Congress are men of the world; and when the 
wind blows favorably they can discern to 
"know a hawk from a handsaw," as says the 
man whom you pronounce " by far the great- 
est of the human race." Like Shakespeare, 
they are somewhat " acquainted with the hu- 
man heart," and they are therefore suspicious 
of human designs. When a lobbyist comes 
around with a " smile that is gentle and child- 
like," they suspect him of "ways that are 
dark, and of tricks that are vain." When the 
" star-eyed goddess of reform " glides in, lean- 
ing on the arm of an attorney of the whisky 
ring, they glance down at the pockets of the 
latter, to see if they are swelled with a filling 
of greenbacks. The members of Congress 
were blinded with all uncharitableness. They 
had become "judges of evil thoughts." They 
could not see how you could desire the repeal 
of the statutory prohibition of the use of the 
postal service in the clandestine circulation 
of obscene prints and literature among young 



102 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

girls, only in the interest of that " intellectual 
freedom to the attainment of which you look 
forward as the last and greatest emancipation 
of mankind." They looked upon the petition 
of the slime bugs as the insolent prayer of a 
set of infidels, moved by love of money and 
lust; and the committee's report (on record) 
recommends that "the petition of Kobt. G. In- 
gersoll and others be rejected." 

Just so, some prayers offered to God may 
even move him to resentment. " Ye ask and 
receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may 
consume it upon your lusts." 

Yet it is not in vain to send a petition to 
Congress because it refused the prayer of the 
petition of the free-thinkers in behalf of the 
personal liberty of the slime bugs. 

But we may come down to yet simpler and 
better illustrations of the nature and manner 
of prayers and their answers. There is the 
father and his children. The children ask 
many things of their father. Some of their 
requests are absolutely refused. Is it there- 
fore in vain to ask any thing of the father? 



COMMON SENSE. 103 

No; for he also grants many of the children's 
requests. Some of the things asked for, he 
would have bestowed though unasked; but 
others he grants because they are requested 
of him. He is affected by importunity; and 
even a wise father may wisely grant in some 
cases that which it is not the very best to be- 
stow, because of the importunity of the child. 
He may admonish the child that in his opin- 
ion it were better the request were not urged; 
but yet he will allow the child a measure of 
liberty in its choice, and so grants the request. 
Yet again, the father may not grant the par- 
ticular prayer offered ; but in tender consider- 
ation of the desires and importunities of the 
child, he consoles it by bestowing some other 
gift. It is therefore by no means in vain for 
the child to pray favors of its father. 

If a father, for sufficient reasons, were to 
admonish his children to make all their de- 
sires known to him; and if, in disregard of 
such admonition, some of his children, in a 
spirit of alienation, should refrain from ask- 
ing such things as they desire, this would be 



104 LETTERS TO IN GEL'S DLL. 

good reason for the father to withhold such 
gifts as he might be aware that the children 
desired — and even such things as they might 
need — because of their obduracy. And he 
may for like reasons grant to others some 
things which they could well enough do with- 
out, as a reward for their faithful obedience 
to his law in respect to asking. This ap- 
pears to my mind good sense, in respect to 
the prayers of children, addressed to their 
parents. 

Now we regard the Almighty as our Father 
and your Father. If he has made to us the 
revelation which we believe he has made, that 
revelation enjoins upon us all, as a duty as 
well as a privilege, the formal presentation of 
our desires to God. It intends that we shall 
not entertain any desires or pursue any pur- 
poses, great or small, which we may not dare 
to lay before our heavenly Father. Here is 
indeed room for the " subjective operation " 
of prayer upon the conscience of the peti- 
tioner. Suppose the slime bugs who sent that 
petition to Congress had believed in the ex- 



THE REASON OF IT. 105 

istence of a pure and holy God, and that his 
ear was open to their prayers, could they have 
had the face to beseech him to so influence 
the hearts and direct the minds of the mem- 
bers of Congress, that they would repeal the 
prohibitory statutes, and allow them the "per- 
sonal liberty " of circulating obscene pictures 
and literature through the mails, to corrupt 
young girls in the schools? I doubt if even 
your own invulnerable cheek could have asked 
God to help you in the defense of the Star 
Koute cases. 

But does not God know what things we 
have need of, and what things we desire, be- 
fore we ask him? Yes. But for reasons sat- 
isfactory to his wisdom, he has enjoined upon 
us the duty of asking. The reason I have 
above given is perhaps the highest, and inclu- 
sive of all others which may be suggested. It 
may be enlarged upon, and illustrated, and 
stated in different forms of thought. But aft- 
er all it comes to this, that God desires his 
children to make their Father their most inti- 
mate confidant, to whom they shall make all 



106 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

their desires and purposes known — asking his 
advice and assistance. 

Revelation teaches plainly that there is in 
the universe a power (or powers) adverse to 
God, which seeks to draw away man from his 
heavenly Father. That hostile power offers 
to man many gifts and favors on the condition 
that man will worship God's adversary. It 
leads man up into the " exceedingly high 
mountain," and shows him all the kingdoms 
of the world and the glory of them. And the 
tempter says: "All these things will I give 
thee — for these are delivered into my hand, 
and to whomsover I will I give them. If there- 
fore thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine." 
This passage in the temptation of the Federal 
Representative of our race — be it allegorical, 
or historical, or both— well presents the case. 
We may reverently infer that necessity is laid 
upon God to establish the opposite rule : " Thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him oidy 
shalt thou serve." Continual approach to our 
Father in heaven is enjoined upon us; an ap- 
proach by adoration, thanksgiving, confession, 



THE REASON OF IT. 107 

and prayer, that we may still retain God in 
our knowledge, be submissive to his will, 
conformed to his will, made perfect in every 
good work to do his will, his Spirit working in 
us that which is well pleasing in his sight 
through Jesus Christ. It is by means of this 
approach by worship and prayer that God is 
able to give to man the best evidence of his own 
existence, " and that he is the rewarder of those 
who diligently seek him." I do not mean only 
that you find this evidence recorded in ancient 
books, but you find it in the writings of mod- 
ern times and in the testimony of living wit- 
nesses. Nor do I find any testimony to the 
contrary, by witnesses who have made the test 
with diligent and sincere application to their 
Father in heaven. 

Without habitual approach to God the indi- 
vidual man is like the boy who steals away from 
his father, and seeks the company of the way- 
ward and vicious, wants "personal liberty "to 
eat and drink when he pleases and what he 
pleases, and to follow after all manner of lusts 
which war against the soul — to seek his bliss in 



108 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

the play-ground, and not in the workshop or 
field of labor. He finds companions who teach 
him that his father is a puritanical old fogy, 
who dwells in " the way back," and does not 
keep abreast with the procession of the age. 
Because the man will not, and does not like to, 
retain God in his knowledge, God (of necessity, 
I think) gives him over to a reprobate mind. 

In respect to evidence, men may cast doubts 
upon historical records of miracles and other 
divine things, but the miraculous answers to 
prayer continue with us. And the operations 
of his Spirit and spiritual agencies are made 
manifest to innumerable myriads of people 
whose intellectual faculties and acquirements 
are insufficient for the investigation of what is 
more commonly called the Christian evidences. 

I may be permitted to express a degree of 
wonder that none of those who have essayed 
to answer your recent writings in the North 
American Review, or have furnished short no- 
tices of the controversy, have borne testimony 
to the fact that God hears and answers prayer. 
Here, as elsewhere, you find your advantage 



PRAYER AND MIRACLES. 109 

in the fact that the men against whose teach- 
ings you direct your assaults " have left the 
fountain of living waters, and hewn out for 
themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can 
hold no water." 

I regularly peruse two religious weeklies 
of high reputation and vast circulation, con- 
ducted with much ability and learning. One 
is the connectional organ of a large denomi- 
nation of orthodox Christians ; the other is per- 
haps the most generally circulated Sunday- 
school paper in this country. Yet I find in 
their columns fewer accounts of God's answers 
to prayer than appear in the secular journals. 
Hungering for such intelligence, I scan the 
pages of these Christian papers week after 
week generally in vain. It is no wonder, then, 
since these and many others of similar charac- 
ter and position find little or no occasion to 
record instances of God's answers to prayer, 
that unbelievers find in this an argument 
against the faith which teaches that there is a 
God "who will help man in extremity." 

Yes, and the unbeliever is not altogether 



110 LETTERS TG 1NGEESOLL. 

wrong in his argument. If indeed " the days 
of miracles are past " — that is to say, if God 
does not manifest in the present time, and 
has not in times near enough to admit of such 
proof as we usually rely on in respect to the 
facts of history, manifested his being and 
power miraculously — this of itself by no 
means sustains David Hume's superb non- 
sense; but it does supply a negative evidence 
tending to doubts that miracles ever have 
been wrought — of the kind generally relied 
on as evidences of revelation. Satan here de- 
rives his best service and support from those 
who wound Christ in the house of his friends 
— who, without a word of authority from that 
which they accept as the revelation of God, 
declare that " the days of miracles are past." 
Why should they be past? In the sense in 
which the word is more commonly used 
among us, miracles never were a common 
thing, an every-day occurrence, unless it was 
for some short period, comparatively speak- 
ing — as the period of the exodus, when the 
Mosaic dispensation was established; and the 



MIRACLES. Ill 

period of the public ministry of Christ and 
his apostles. Count all the miracles specific- 
ally narrated in the Scriptures, from the close 
of the conquest of Canaan to the birth of 
Christ, and you will find them to scarcely av- 
erage so many as a single miracle for every 
age. And those related as performed in the 
period of the exodus and conquest (exclusive 
of certain repeated or standing miracles like 
the manna), and those in the time of Christ 
and his apostles, would not number much 
more than one for each year of these periods. 
We are told, indeed, that many other miracles 
were wrought by Christ and the apostles; but 
they are held out as things extraordinary, not 
to be expected in the ordinary course of hu- 
man experience. Otherwise their purpose as 
evidences would be in a measure frustrated. 

But some of those who insist that the days 
of miracles are now past yet admit that they 
continued to be wrought by the early Chris- 
tians after the days of the apostles. They can 
hardly deny that miracles continued for some 
two hundred and fifty years. There is much 



112 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

evidence, such as we could expect to find un- 
der the historic circumstances, that miracles 
have continued from age to age, ever since 
the days of the apostles. 

Christlieb, in his "Modern Doubt and 
Christian Belief," takes up the subject with 
something like the regulation degree of hesi- 
tancy, to consider whether miracles do still 
occur. He concedes rather more than I 
would when he says that "miracles in these 
days have fallen into the background, having 
either almost or else entirely ceased." Indeed, 
the latter clause of this sentence is inconsist- 
ent with what he proceeds to state in the 
coDtext. 

He gives instances which he considers well 
accredited, of which I will mention briefly 
only a part. He tells us of "Hans Egede, 
the first evangelical missionary to Greenland." 
The people, on being told by the missionary 
of miracles of healing, call upon him to per- 
form the like among them. They do not see 
why the days of miracles should be past. And 
so, "with many sighs and prayers, he vent- 



MODERN MIRACLES. 113 

ures to lay his hands upon several — prays 
over them — and lo! he makes them whole in 
the name of Jesus Christ." He tells o£ 
Spangenberg and Zeisberger, missionaries in 
the North American forests, and of God's 
helping them " in extremity " by a miraculous 
draught of fishes. Tells of a man who was 
lame in both legs, miraculously healed, in the 
name of Jesus Christ, by a native Christian, 
at a Rhenish mission in South Africa in 1858. 
This incident was recent at the time when the 
learned German wrote his book. 

Christlieb also refers to the miraculous de- 
liverance of the band of Waldenses, in the 
siege of the mountain fortress of La Balsille; 
which, though more remote in time, he gives 
as well-attested history. He also speaks of 
the miraculous deliverance of the crew of the 
missionary ship "Harmony," on the coast of 
Labrador. He adds: "But even apart from 
the history of Missions, especially in the heal- 
ing of the sick, and in miraculous answers to 
prayer, our times offer resemblances at least 
to the apostolic age." "I must only remind 



114 LETTERS TO 1XGEES0LL. 

you," he says, " of the humble origin and the 
great development of so many Christian in- 
stitutions and societies, as related in the 
memoirs of A. H. Franke, J. Falk, Jung 
Stilling, J. Gossner, George Muller, of Bris- 
tol; Theodor Fliedner, L. Harms, J. Wiehern, 
and others, whom Spurgeon designates ' modern 
workers of miracles.'" 

About the time of the publication of the 
work of Christlieb from which I have quoted, 
Dr. Horace Bushnell first published his 
"Nature and the Supernatural," in which he' 
devotes one chapter to the subject, under the 
head of " Miracles and Supernatural Gifts not 
Discontinued." After an able argument well 
worth quoting, but which cannot be repeated 
here in its length, the learned author proceeds 
as follows: 

What is wanted, therefore, on this subject in order 
to any sufficient impression, is a full, consecutive inven- 
tory of the supernatural events, or phenomena, of the 
world. There is reason to suspect that many would, 
in that case, be greatly surprised by the commonness of 
the instances. Could they becollected and chronicled 
in their real multitude, what is now felt to be their 



MODERN MIRACLES. 115 

strangeness would quite vanish away, and possibly they 
would even seem to recur much as in the more ancient 

times of the world. 

The first thing arrived at by any one who prosecutes 
this kind of inquiry apart from all prepossessions and 
saws of tradition, will certainly be that the clumsy as- 
sumption commonly held of a cessation of the original 
apostolic gifts, at or about some given date, is forever ex- 
ploded. For as in fact they never consented to be staid 
or concluded by any given time, so in history they per- 
sist in running by all time, till finally the investigator, 
unable to set down any date after which they were not, 
comes into the discovery that the stream is a river, flow- 
ing continuously through all ages, and always to flow. 
He could not give us the wonders of Ignatius, Polycarp, 
Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Ireneus, Tertullian, Origen ; 
and there declare the point of cessation to be reached. 
He would not come down to Cyprian or Augustine, and 
settle it there ; or down to Paul the Hermit, and settle 
it there. The dreams of Huss, the prophesyings of Lu- 
ther and Fox and Archbishop Usher, the ecstasies of 
Xavier, with innumerable other wonders and visitations 
of God in the saints of the Church during all the inter- 
vening ages, bridge the gulf between us and the ancient 
times, and bring us to a question of miracles and gifts 
as a question of our own day and time. 

Descending now to the times we call modern — the 
times, for example, subsequent to the Reformation — 



116 LETTERS TO IXGEBSOLL. 

nothing is easier, exactly contrary to the very common 
impression, than to show that the same kind of prodi- 
gies are current here in the last three as in the first three 
centuries of the Church. Whoever has read that Chris- 
tian classic, " The Scots Worthies," has followed a stream 
of prophecies and healings and visible judgments and 
specific answers to prayer and discernments of spirits, 
corresponding at all points with the gifts and wonders 
of the apostolic age. And the men who figure in these 
gifts and powers are the great names of the heroic age 
of religion in their country : Wishart, Knox, Erskine, 
Craig, Davidson, Simpson, Welch, Guthrie, Blair, Wel- 
wood, Cameron, Cargill, and Peden. 

At a laterperiod, on the repeal of the edict of Nantes, 
and in the persecutions which followed, a large body 
of the Protestant or Reformed disciples, called Hugue- 
nots, hunted by their pursuers, fled to the mountains of 
Cevennes. Some of them also escaped to England and 
other Protestant countries. Among these unhappy peo- 
ple the miraculous gifts were developed, and by them 
were more or less widely disseminated abroad. They 
had tongues and interpretations of tongues. They had 
healings and the discerning of spirits. They prophesied 
in the Spirit. Intelligent persons went out from Paris 
to hear, observe, and make inquiry; and these people 
were much discussed as "Les Trembleurs des Cevennes" 
In England they were also discussed as the " French 
Prophets;" and the fire they kindled in England caught 



MODERN MIRACLES. 117 

among some of the English disciples, and burned for 
many years. 

About forty years after this appearing of the gifts 
among the Huguenots, a very similar development ap- 
peared among the Catholic or Jansenist population of 
Paris. Cures began to be wrought at the tomb of St. 
Medard, and particularly of persons afflicted with con- 
vulsions. And as the Jansenists were at this time un- 
der persecution at the hands of the Jesuits, and bear- 
ing witness as they believed for the truth of Christ, it is 
not wonderful that they began to be exercised much as 
the Huguenots of the Cevennes had been. They had 
the gifts of tongues, the discerning of spirits, and the 
gift of prophesying. These were called, " Convulsionnaires 
de St. Medard" because of the ecstatic state into which 
they seemed to be raised. 

The sect of Friends, from George Fox downward, 
have had it as a principle to expect gifts, revelations, 
discernings of spirits, and indeed a complete divine 
movement. Thus Fox, over and above his divine reve- 
lations, wrought, as multitudes believed, works of heal- 
ing in the sick. Take the following references from the 
index of his " Journal," as affording in the briefest form 
a conception of the wonders he was supposed, and sup- 
posed himself, to have wrought : " Miracles Wrought by 
the Power of God— The Lame Made Whole— The Dis- 
eased Restored — A Distracted Woman Healed — A 
Great Man Given Over by Physicians Restored— Speaks 



118 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

to a Sick Man in Maryland, Who is Raised Up by the 
Lord's Power — Prays the Lord to Rebuke J. C.'s Infirm- 
ity, and the Lord by His Power Soon gave Him Ease." 
Led on thus by Fox, the Friends have always claimed 
the continuance of the original gifts of the Spirit in the 
apostolic age : and have looked for them, we may almost 
say, in the ordinary course of their Christian demonstra- 
tions. "We are not surprised, therefore, to find such a 
man of policy and incomparable shrewdness as Isaac T. 
Hopper believing as firmly in the prophetic gifts of his 
friend Arthur Howell as in those of Isaiah or Paul. 
This Howell was a preacher and leather currier in Phil- 
adelphia — a man of perfect integrity in all the business 
of life, and also a most gentle and benignant soul in all 
his intercourse and society with men. One Sunday 
morning, on his way to Germantown, he met a funeral 
procession ; when, knowing nothing of the deceased, " it 
was suddenly revealed to him," so says the history, 
" that the occupant of the coffin before him was a woman, 
whose life had been saddened by the suspicion of a crime 
which she never committed. The impression became 
strong on his mind that she wished him to make certain 
statements at her funeral. When the customary serv- 
ices were finished, Arthur Howell rose and asked per- 
mission to speak. ' I did not know the deceased even 
by name/ said he; 'but it is given me to say that she 
suffered much and unjustly. Her neighbors generally 
suspected her of a crime that she did not commit; and 



MODERN MIRACLES. 119 

in a few weeks from this time it will be clearly made 
manifest that she was innocent. A few hours before 
her death she talked on this subject with the clergyman 
who attended upon her, and who is now present ; and 
it is given me to declare the communication she made 
to him on that occasion.' 

" He then proceeded to relate the particulars of the 
.interview, to which the clergyman listened with evident 
astonishment. When the communication was finished, 
he said : ' I do not know who this man is, or how he 
obtained his information on this subject. But certain 
it is, that he has repeated, word for word, a conversation 
which I supposed was known only to myself and the 
deceased.' The explanation came, it is added, in exact 
accordance with Howell's promise." — Bushnell. 

Bnshnell, as far back as 1864, makes a re- 
mark strikingly applicable to the present day, 
as follows: 

How many cases of definite answers to prayers, such 
as are reported in the cases of Stilling, Franke, and 
others, are brought to our knowledge every week in the 
year. Cases of definite premonition are reported so 
familiarly and circumstantially as to make a consider- 
able item in the newspaper literature of our time. 

It is jnst so to-day; and we may doubt if 
the accounts of these miracles are more care- 



120 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

fully excluded from the columns of the most 
openly infidel papers, or from your lectures, 
than from a class of religious periodicals and 
newspapers. Their editors fear that they will 
bring the faith of Christ into derision by pub- 
lishing well-attested facts tending to prove 
that the living God is still with us — and other 
facts, indicating that there really exists a 
spiritual world, which is not distant from us 
either in time or space. They would not have 
us to doubt that a certain man was " warned 
of God in a dream" near 1900 years ago; but 
if any such thing happen in the year 1888, 
and come so well attested as to leave no doubt 
of the bare facts — they may possibly tell the 
news, but will " leave it to the reader to draw 
his own conclusions." More than a hundred 
years ago, John Wesley was riding wearily, 
with his own head aching, upon a horse that 
was lame. Suddenly, moved by an inspira- 
tion, he says: "God can, if he will, heal at 
once the lameness of my horse, and ease the 
pain of my head." In an instant the pain 
ceases, and he perceives that the beast has 



MODERN MIRACLES. 121 

ceased to limp. He puts it down in his 
journal — I have quoted the account from 
memory — but so great and pious a man adds 
in substance, " every man may draw his own 
conclusion." The rationalist and materialist 
would conclude that the nervous action which 
seemed an inspiration cured the preacher's 
headache— which is plausible. But if they in- 
sist that its magnetism also cured the horse's 
leg, this is rather hard for my faith to re- 
ceive. If indeed faith (without God) is so 
potential a factor, let us harness it up and put 
it to work, as we have done with the light- 
ning. 

Dr. Bushnell further states the following. 
Speaking of things which had occurred in 
London then " only a few years ago," he con- 
tinues: 

There was much discussion there of the case in par- 
ticular of Miss Fancourt as a case of healing. She was 
a cripple, reduced to a bedridden state by a curve of the 
spine, and the painful disorder of almost all the joints 
of her body. ... A Christian friend who had 
been greatly interested in her behalf called one even- 
ing, when the subject of supernatural healing was dis- 



122 LETT E US TO INGERSOLL. 

cussed. The friend, Mr. Graves, was a believer in such 
gifts ; but Mr. Fancourt, the father, a genuinely Chris- 
tian person, was not. After a time he disappeared ; and 
during his absence from the room Mr. Graves arose, as 
Miss Fancourt supposed, to take his leave. But instead 
of the "good-night" she expected, he commanded her 
to stand on her feet and walk. Forthwith she rose up, 
stood, walked, was clear of her pains, took on all the 
characters of a well person, and so continued. A great 
discussion was raised immediately in the public jour- 
nals, and particularly between the Morning Watch and 
Christian Observer — in which the Observer took pre- 
cisely the ground of Mr. Hume, as respects the credi- 
bility of miracles performed now— insisting that hence- 
forth, since the Scripture time, "we must admit any 
solution rather than a miracle." 

Let any man of ability to investigate the 
facts of the many cases of modern miracles, 
reported from time to time, enter upon such 
work in a proper truth- seeking spirit; and it 
will not be long till he shall become able to 
appreciate the following statement of Dr. 
Bushnell of his own experience: 

Having had this question of supernatural fact upon 
my hands now for a number of years, in a determina- 
tion also to be concluded by no mere conventionalities, 



MODERN MIRACLES. 123 

to observe, inquire, listen, and judge — I have been sur- 
prised to find how many things were coming to my 
knowledge and acquaintance, that most persons take it 
for granted are utterly incredible, except in what they 
call the age of miracles and apostolic gifts — that is, in 
the first three centuries of the Church. Indeed, they 
are become so familiar, after only a few years of atten- 
tion so directed, and without inquiring after them, that 
their unfamiliar and strange look is gone. They even 
appear to belong more or less commonly to the Church 
and the general economy of the Spirit. 

And thereupon the author proceeds to re- 
late a case corning to his own knowledge — 
that is, upon information which he believes to 
be true — as follows: 

As I sat by the fire, one stormy November night, in 
a hotel parlor in the Napa Valley of California, there 
came in a most venerable and benignant-looking per- 
son with his wife, taking their seats in the circle. The 
stranger, as I afterward learned, was Captain Yount, a 
man who came over into California as a trapper more 
than forty years ago* Here he has lived apart from 
the great world and its questions, acquiring an immense 
landed estate, and becoming a kind of acknowledged 
patriarch in the country. ... At my request he 

* Now more than sixty-five years ago. 



124 LETTERS TO INGEESOLL. 

gave me his story. About six or seven years previous, 
in a midwinter's night, he had a dream, in which he 
saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants, ar- 
rested by the snows of the mountains, and perishing 
rapidly by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of 
the scenery, marked by a huge perpendicular white 
rock cliff. He saw the men cutting off what appeared 
to be tree-tops, rising out of what appeared deep gulfs 
of snow. He distinguished the very features of the 
persons, and the look of their particular distress. He 
woke, profoundly impressed with the distinctness and 
apparent reality of his dream. At length he fell asleep, 
and dreamed exactly the same dream again. In the 
morning he could not expel it from his mind. Falling 
in shortly with an old hunter comrade, he told him the 
story ; and was only the more deeply impressed by his 
recognizing, without hesitation, the scenery of the 
dream. This comrade came over the Sierra by the 
Carson Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in the pass 
answered exactly to his description. By this the un- 
sophisticated patriarch was decided. He immediately 
collected a company of men with mules and blankets 
and all necessary provisions. The neighbors were 
laughing, meantime, at his credulity. "No matter," 
said he, " I am able to do this ; and I will ; for I verily 
believe the fact is according to my dream." The men 
were sent into the mountains one hundred and fifty 
miles distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass. And 



MODERN MIRACLES. 125 

there they found the company in exactly the condition 
of the dream, and brought in the remnant alive. 
A gentleman present said: "You need have no 

doubt of this ; for we Californians all know the facts, 
and also the names of the families brought in, who 
now look on our friend as a kind of savior." These 
names he gave, and the places where they reside; and 
I found afterward that the California people were 
ready, everywhere, to second his testimony. 

This incident is not connected, so far as dis- 
closed, with prayer — though it is highly 
probable at least that persons in the number 
of those who were "in extremity" in that 
prison of mountains, snow, and ice, "cried 
unto the Lord in their trouble." And so this 
trapper and land owner of the far West, " be- 
ing warned of God in a dream," sent to "save 
them out of their distress." 

Many incidents like this one are related 
from time to time, published in the newspa- 
pers and in books. And yet, instead of in- 
vestigating the evidence of the truth or falsity 
of the stories, the world of reasoners (so 
called) simply rejects them as idle tales; or 
else seeks to account for them as mere acci- 



126 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 



dents or coincidences. The former is uncaU- 
did, unscientific, unmanly. The latter may 
be fair; but generally more credulity is neces- 
sary to receive the naturalistic explanation 
than to recognize the supernatural character 
of the events. 

An incident resembling the one given above 
by Bushnell — tending to prove supernatural 
communications in dreams, but having other- 
wise no useful character — came almost within 
my own knowledge a few years ago, and was 
published at the time in a Nashville daily 
newspaper. On Tuesday a well-known citizen 
stepped into a public place of business; and 
while there remarked that on the previous 
night he had a curious dream, which he pro- 
ceeded to relate in substance as follows : " In 
my dream I was riding with Mr. O. on the 
Cumberland Mountain; and as we traveled we 
met Mr. M. and his son. Mr. O. on the one 
part and the two M.'s on the other opened fire 
on each other. And as I saw in my dream all 
three were killed." Some one present re- 
marked that such a thing might happen, as 



MODERN MIRACLES. 127 

these men were "at daggers' points." " But," 
said the dreamer, " I did not know that there 
was any thing between them, and cannot im- 
agine why I should have had such a dream." 
And so the matter was passed over as merely 
a dream. It was perhaps a little remarkable 
that the dreamer, without any advice of a 
difficulty, should have had such a dream. 
But the marvel did not stop here. No actual 
tragedy had occurred up to the hour the 
dream was told, nor did any occur that day. 
But on the forenoon of the next day the 
parties did have a hostile meeting, with fire- 
arms, not on the mountain, but in the city of 
Knoxville, resulting in the instant death of 
all three. When the telegraph brought the 
news of the tragedy, about twenty-four hours 
afterward, of course the revelation of the 
dream was recalled. 

This incident, as I have said, was at the time 
reported and published; and it still can be ver- 
ified by the testimony of highly respectable 
witnesses. What does it prove? I will not 
insist that if it stood alone, with nothing else 



128 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

like it iii human experience, it would be suffi- 
cient to prove any thing. You might call it a 
remarkable coincidence. If similar cases were 
even rare, such explanation might be tolerated. 
But it is notorious that these miracles are not 
uncommon. One occurred in my own expe- 
rience which was even frivolous in its charac- 
ter. And who shall say — if these revelations 
come from disembodied spirits — who shall say 
that spirits out of the body shall be always 
grave, and indulge in no gossipy folly ? On a 
Saturday night, during a time of some excite- 
ment in the real estate market, I dreamed that 
certain speculators had purchased the proper- 
ty on both sides of one square of a narrow 
street in Nashville, for the purpose of tearing 
down the buildings and replacing them with 
fine improvements. I saw in my dream that 
on one side of the street this work had been 
done, and looked at the imposing row of stone 
fronts which had taken the place of the old 
buildings. I made some inquiry as to why 
they had not widened the narrow street, and 
was told that the lots were too shallow on that 



MODEBN MIRACLES. 129 

side. This fact was the only one which my 
waking knowledge could have suggested to my 
dream. I could not recall afterward that I 
had ever heard a suggestion of such a specu- 
lation or enterprise, and it was one at which 
I should have smiled as ridiculous. The next 
day, after I had been to Sunday-school and 
church, my dream having passed out of my 
mind, on looking at the morning paper, to my 
amusement and amazement, behold! there was 
an account of the reported purchase, which 
had not in fact been made, and of the project- 
ed grand improvements, substantially as re- 
vealed in my dream, but embracing also an- 
other piece of property which my dream did 
not include. As for the latter part of the re- 
port, not included in the dream, there was a 
foundation in fact. But the dream and that 
part of the report which corresponded with it 
were never verified. The question is, How was 
that piece of ridiculous gossip transmitted to 
the mind of the dreamer (who had never 
thought of such a thing) probably about the 
time the printer was putting it in type? I 



130 LETTERS TO 1NGERSOLL. 

thought curiously and carefully over the mat- 
ter at the time, and could recall no word, sug- 
gestion, or circumstance which could have put 
such a thought in my mind, either dreaming 
or awake. Yet I could hardly have repeated 
the report as published in the paper more ac- 
curately than it had been given in the dream, 
with the exception I have noted. 

I once heard a father say to a young friend: 
"I wish you would see if my son is on a 
spree." "No; I think not," was the reply, "I 
saw him at such a time, and he was all right." 
"Yes; but I had a dream last night [of a 
character which he indicated], and generally 
when I have that kind of dream I find my son 
is on a spree." Afterward, the young man 
spoken to informed me that sure enough that 
father's dream indicated the truth. 

These things are common, and call for scien- 
tific investigation to ascertain the psycholog- 
ical or spiritual causes which produce them. 
Who or what was it that brought the informa- 
tion from the pass in the mountains, one hun- 
dred and fifty miles, to the old trapper in Napa 



MODE EX MIRACLES. 131 

Valley, that a company of emigrants were 
snow-bound and perishing ? Who or what was 
it that came two hundred miles across mount- 
ains and rivers, from Knoxville to Nashville, 
and on Monday night communicated to the 
sleeper in the latter place the prophecy of the 
tragedy which should come to pass on the fol- 
lowing Wednesday? What was it that dis- 
turbed my own quiet slumber with the non- 
sense about the reported speculation in real 
estate which was put in type that very night 
in a city printing-office several hundred yards 
from the place of my slumbers ? (I should fur- 
ther say that I was not myself engaged in such 
speculations, or specially concerned about 
them. ) If we could believe with the ancients 
that there are unseen spiritual agencies, which 
pass to and fro in the world, communicating 
with our embodied spirits, the explanation of 
these phenomena is easy enough. But this 
would be superstitious — quite repugnant to our 
sober philosophy. And so we cannot account 
for the wonders, and shove them aside with 
a smile, as old wives' fables or nursery stories. 



132 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

The answers to prayer, of a character which 
cannot be accounted for on any other ground 
than that they are the responses of unseen In- 
telligence and Power to the requests of human 
beings, are quite as common as these miracu- 
lous dreams, and I think much more frequent. 
We do wrong to only acknowledge as answers 
to prayer those things which cannot be other- 
wise accounted for. When we ask a favor of 
our Father in heaven, we should expect 
him to grant that thing, unless there be some 
good reason for withholding it, just as if our 
request was made of our earthly father. Many 
persons not very pious have experience of such 
answers to their prayers ; and both with these 
and those more devout these benefits are too 
generally " hid within the heart " of the bene- 
ficiary; and if related, it is done in a confiden- 
tial way to some intimate friend. A sense of 
personal unworthiness sometimes helps to de- 
ter the recipient from confessing openly that 
God has condescended to answer a prayer in 
such manner as to leave no doubt of its char- 
acter as an answer. But the fear of being re- 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 133 

garded as superstitious, or weak-minded, or as 
cranks, generally co-operates with any other 
motives in inducing us to keep secret God's 
mercies. 

I could wish that Mr. Gladstone had given 
his experience on this point. If he has passed 
through his long and honorable life without 
now being able to declare that at any time his 
heavenly Father has answered one of his 
prayers in such manner as to command his 
recognition of it as such answer, let him de- 
clare it. And so of the Rev. Dr. Field. And 
so of the other professing Christians who have 
written in this controversy. You make the 
challenge boldly. Let it not be passed over 

in silence. We who profess to believe that 
men in olden times received such answers let 
us speak out. Does God answer prayer now, 
as openly as he did in former times? Why 
not? And if we refrain to give our testimony 
when not called for, shall we also hold our 
peace when challenged to speak out? 

That ancient psalm is canonical which sets 
forth various trying circumstances — including 



134 LETTERS TO INGEESOLL. 

the cases of fools and wicked persons — under 
which men " cry unto the Lord in their troub- 
le, and he saveth them out of their distresses." 
And the Psalmist in the chorus reproaches 
men for their failure to make public acknowl- 
edgment thus: "Othat men would praise the 
Lord for his goodness, and his wonderful works 
to the children of men! Let them exalt him also 
in the assembly of the people, and praise him in 
the seat of the elders" (Ps. cvii.) But you 
might read a religious paper for a year, 
and not be reminded that God answers such 
prayers as this Psalmist speaks of. I once re- 
proached a good religious editor with failure 
in respect to taking notice of God's answers 
to prayer, and he replied that every revival 
notice in his paper was a testimony to this 
point. And I have a book before me entitled, 
"The Power of Prayer;" but on perusing its 
contents one would almost suppose that God 
has nothing to do with the temj^oral affairs of 
men. Satan is always ready to help a good 
man to hand over all the things of this life to 
him. He tells him that he (Satan) is the 



ANSWKRS TO PRAYER. 135 

temporal prince of this world, while God and 
Christ have a spiritual jurisdiction. The psalm 
before quoted sets before us several ciasses 
of persons "in extremity" who find relief by 
crying unto Jehovah in their trouble. One 
class is "hungry and thirsty;" another class 
would seem to be prisoners, " bound in afflic- 
tion and iron," their " heart brought down with 
labor." In describing their relief the Psalm- 
ist says the Lord " brake their bands asun- 
der," and adds, " for he hath broken the gates of 
brass, and cut the bars of iron asunder." An- 
other class he describes as " fools " who, be- 
cause of their transgressions and iniquities, 
are afflicted with bodily illness, and are re- 
stored to health in answer to their own prayer. 
Another class is " those who go down to the sea 
in ships," and the storm is made a calm in an- 
swer to their prayer. And further in describing 
God's blessings, given, as seems from the con- 
nection, in answer to prayer, the Psalmist says : 
" He blesseth them also, so that they multiply 
greatly; and he suffereth not their cattle to de- 
crease." I admit that a revival is a better thing 



136 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

than a good crop; and the conversion of a son 
than the birth of even the son himself, not to 
speak of a fine colt. But Satan wants it under- 
stood that while God is the God of revivals 
and of spiritual regeneration, he will not be 
bothered about the crops and the cattle. The 
preachers and religious editors do not agree 
to this; but the devil has got them ashamed 
to speak out freely on the subject, lest he 
should laugh at them. When they do speak 
out it is in a formal and determined way, as 
if they had braced up their courage for a des- 
perate charge. In the book on the "Power of 
Prayer," after hundreds of pages of the an- 
swers of prayers for spiritual blessings, a chap- 
ter is by request contributed by the late Dr. 
W. S. Plummer, distinguished for ability and 
a happy, God-given humor, as well as piety. 
The first answer to prayer which he relates is 
the story of a poor farmer who owed some 
taxes and ten dollars to his merchant — of the 
straits to which the poor man was reduced 
— his wrestling in prayer, and deliverance in 
answer thereto. I like that. Then he tells of 



AXSWJERS TO PRAYS R. J 37 

a little boy whom he met with, who was work- 
ing for a living, and at the same time strug- 
gling for an education, and praying every day 
to God for help. The boy succeeded. I like 
that too. God made this world for us; and 
he sympathizes with our efforts to make a liv- 
ing, to rise to respectability, and to pay our 
debts. And the man who goes to God daily 
for help in these things is not so likely to 
adopt Satan's methods in his affairs. Not 
only so, but God has promised to help him in 
answer to prayer. 

God makes particular promises to the right- 
eous, but he hears sinners also. We can 
prove this by the psalm already quoted. We 
do not claim to be good, or holy, or any thing 
more than men of like passions with our fel- 
lows, by confessing that we have called upon 
God in our trouble, and he has saved us out 
of our distresses. Dr. Bushnell repeats the 
story of a certain physician, who had been in 
straitened circumstances — that on one oc- 
casion he was without the sum of ten dollars 
to pay his rent. He and his wife resorted to 



138 LETTERS TO INGEBSOLL. 

prayer, as seems to have been their reliance 
in such cases of "their extremity." The time 
came, and so did the creditor, but the money 
had not come ; and the relier upon the prayer- 
hearing God began to feel that for once his 
reliance had been in vain. But before the 
visitor had asked for his rent, a neighbor 
called him out for an interview. During this 
short respite, a man came in whom the physi- 
cian did not remember — said he owed him a 
fee of ten dollars for medical attention, which 
the doctor had forgotten — and paid it. "And 
so," said the physician, " when my landlord re- 
turned I had his money ready." I admit that 
if such incidents were very uncommon, this 
one might be classed as only a remarkable oc- 
currence. But my examination of such evi- 
dence as I have been able to reach convinces 
me that similar incidents are of frequent oc- 
currence. Some such have occurred in my own 
experience. The cases indicate that if, with- 
out relaxing diligent effort, men would more 
resort to such supernatural help by prayer, in- 
cidents of like kind would be more numerous. 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 139 

I ought frankly to say that time and again 
has my unbelief or hesitating faith been sur- 
prised quite as much as was this physician, 
who told the story with others to Dr. Bush- 
nell. 

In respect to prayers for the sick, I will 
relate the following. Some ten or more years 
ago, I learned that a certain young man was 
lying very low, the only son of his mother, 
who was extremely anxious about his condi- 
tion, and desired that I should visit him. I 
had no reputation as a healer of any kind, or 
as a man of exemplary holiness; but in her 
distress this poor mother desired my presence 
as a friend of the family. I had been the 
Sunday-school teacher of the young man, and 
called on Sunday afternoon. After a time 
spent in conversation, I was about to take 
leave, when the mother requested that I 
should offer prayer. Having not more than 
once before, if ever, performed this duty by 
the bedside "of the sick, it was with some em- 
barrassment that I complied, though in the 
presence of only two pious women and a sick 



140 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

young man. Here occurred the remarkable 
part of my experience. As in a feeble man- 
ner I led the prayer, and asked if consistent 
with God's will the life of the sufferer should 
be spared, suddenly and unexpectedly there 
came upon my mind, as by inspiration, an im- 
pression which forced its utterance without 
any volition of mine, in these words: "And 
we believe that thou wilt grant our request, 
and raise him up." My best recollection is 
that the impression did not precede its utter- 
ance; but as it were I learned the full import 
of the impression from my own words, which 
were uttered with the utmost confidence and 
some feeling. I was myself surprised, and 
presently tempted to doubt. [Resisting the 
temptation successfully, however, at the close 
of the prayer I at once departed with the 
same confidence in God's answer to our 
prayer. I was not expecting a miracle, how- 
ever; and was surprised, on the following 
Saturday, to meet the young man in the 
market, in health, and with scarce a trace of 
his late illness apparent. Wondering at so 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 141 

rapid a restoration from so low a state of sick- 
ness, I inquired when lie began to amend. 
"Bight away after your visit," was the reply. 
I had not been aware that my expression of 
confidence had made any unusual impression, 
nothing having been spoken to that effect be- 
fore my departure. I learned afterward that 
the same inspiration was felt by the mother 
at the time; but if the patient was so im- 
pressed, I was not informed of the fact. But 
his beginning to amend was almost or quite 
instantaneous, and his recovery very rapid. 
The gentleman, who is now and has for years 
been a prominent educator, himself regards 
his sudden restoration to health on the occa- 
sion referred to, as in answer to our prayer. 

Many of those who are in the habit of pray- 
ing in earnest — I do not mean here earnestly, 
but in earnest — have at times extraordinary 
experiences which it were well to relate. 
They may throw upon the subject some light. 
I once heard Dr. Earle, the Baptist evangel- 
ist, relate a case of his own experience sub- 
stantially as follows: A man who was a vie- 



142 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

tira of the drink habit, desiring to reform, 
became a seeker of religion; and having in- 
terviews on the subject with Dr. Earle, the 
evangelist was much interested in the case, 
and was struggling "with much burden on 
his heart" in prayer for the man's conversion. 
Suddenly on one occasion when he essayed as 
usual to offer prayer for this person, "I 
found," said the doctor, "that I could have 
no burden on my heart on his behalf." And 
soon thereafter he learned that the victim had 
relapsed into his old habit, given up the 
struggle, and was again in a hopeless con- 
dition. 

Another, in whose sobriety of mind and 
veracity I have the utmost confidence, related 
in my hearing the following case: He was 
concerned for the salvation of an intimate 
friend. " So much so," said he, " that I never 
omitted his case from any of my regular 
prayers. At length I wrote him a letter, ap- 
pealing to him as best I could, and with 
tender consideration, on the subject of per- 
sonal religion. My friend replied kindly, and 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 143 

in such manner as should not generally be 
considered discouraging. He claimed to pray 
at times, and professed great reverence for 
the Lord Jesus. And though he declined my 
overture, one might well, from the general 
tone of the reply, have been encouraged at 
least to continue his prayers for his friend. 
Yet from that time the burden of the case 
was so gone from me that I had to watch or 
I would forget to mention this friend at all 
in my prayers; and when I did, my prayer 
seemed perfunctory and forced. About three 
weeks elapsed, and my friend was brought 
home one day from the race-track, sick and 
delirious. He had scarce a lucid interval till 
his death." In these two cases it would 
sadly seem that the men's probation was 
ended, and that this was the reason why the 
prayers of intercession on their behalf could 
no longer find a hearing. 

On the other hand, the following occurred 
in my own experience: I will premise by 
saying that in my prayers I have not been 
uniformly blessed with a sense of access to 



144 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

the throne of grace. Sometimes I have pre- 
sented my petition with repeated and earnest 
importunity, with such effect, both as to in- 
ward impression and outward result, as to re- 
mind me of the sad case of King Saul, when 
"the Lord answered him not, neither by 
Urim, nor by dreams, nor by the prophets." 
At other times it has been as in the case of 
the sick young man above referred to — an as- 
surance of the granting of the request as in 
answer to the prayer then offered. In the 
case I will now relate, there was a still differ- 
ent experience. Prayers were asked in a re- 
ligious meeting for an eminent Christian min- 
ister who had been ill for a considerable time, 
with a disorder which operated very discoura- 
gingly. Not only his friends, but the patient 
himself more than they, seemed affected with 
that kind of depression which is so unfavor- 
able a symptom of disease. Of course I un- 
dertook to pray for the sick man, as in duty 
bound— rather perfunctorily, but yet in ear- 
nest. But my prayer was met by an im- 
pression- not so exciting, but about as dis- 



ANSWERS 10 PRAYER. 145 

tiuct as in the case of the young man — to the 
effect that the matter had already been pre- 
sented, and determined favorably; so that it 
was unnecessary to further urge it. The im- 
pression was just as if I had proceeded with 
all due form and solemnity to present a peti- 
tion to one of the departments of the govern- 
ment, and were promptly met with a reply: 
" We have already had that matter before us, 
and disposed of it as you are now requesting." 
As often as I attempted to renew my petition, 
I was (according to the impression) met by 
the same answer; so that, as Dr. Earle would 
express it, I could have "no burden on my 
heart" in respect to the case. But on in- 
quiry I could not hear any favorable news 
from the patient. He was still suffering and 
discouraged, so far as I could learn. This of 
course caused me to distrust my impression, 
and to return to my prayers, but only to be 
met with the same answer: "Yes; it is al- 
ready so determined." This continued till I 
dropped the case. Years have since elapsed, 

and the sick man has traveled around the 
10 



146 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

world in the meantime, is engaged in full 
work, and apparently in good health. 

I have related several of the foregoing in- 
cidents because there seems in them no room 
for attributing the impressions made upon the 
minds of the persons offering the prayers to 
any nervous or merely subjective action. Dr. 
Earle had heard no news which made him 
unable to intercede for the man whose case 
had lain so heavily on his heart. The man 
who had been praying so constantly for his 
friend could really not be utterly discouraged 
by a polite reply to his letter of admonition. 
Neither of these praying men expected to 
meet with such a change as came over their 
spirits, nor were such experiences of common 
occurrence with them, but excited their 
wonder. And after they became aware of the 
change neither of them could divine the 
cause till they learned something more. In 
both cases the explanation was suggested by 
the result — namely, that they became unable 
further to plead because the case was dis- 
posed of by the court to which their peti- 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 147 

tions were addressed. In the case of the sick 
young man, the vivid impression on my mind 
may plausibly be ascribed to nervous or spir- 
itual reaction ; but in the case of the minister 
— I remember no other experience like that. 
There was with me no excitement — no strong 
anxiety on the one hand, or sanguine expec- 
tation on the other. In the impression of the 
answer there was even that tone of calmness 
savoring of indifference, which we meet in 
worldly cases — as for instance we are stopped 
in the argument of a question by the court, 
because the mind of the court is already with 
us. And though unfavorable advices induce 
the petitioner to return to his prayers, he is 
still met with the same response — altogeth- 
er passionless — that his prayer was already 
granted from before its first presentation by 
this particular petitioner, upon previous con- 
sideration; and though the verification is de- 
layed for a considerable time, yet it comes. 

Though this last related case may be rare 
in some of its particulars, yet not in its main 
feature. During many years of their pro- 



148 LETTERS TO IXGERSOLL. 

tracted public lives, an ardent fraternal 
friendship subsisted between two Methodist 
preachers, Dr. John B. McFerrin and Bishop 
G. F. Pierce. In 1884 the former was lying 
at his home in Tennessee, at the point of 
death. Pierce was at home in Georgia. The 
death of McFerrin was announced by tele- 
graph, and was published by the newspapers 
North and South, with appropriate comments. 
When this report first reached the bishop he 
remarked: "There must be some mistake. I 
have felt from the first that this sickness is 
not unto death." And entering his chamber, 
he continued a long while in prayer to God. 
It was perhaps an hour before he came forth, 
but he came in full assurance of faith. But 
now the newspapers had come from Atlanta, 
with fuller and confirmatory accounts of the 
death of his friend. " Dr. McFerrin is surely 
dead," said the bishop's wife: "here are the 
particulars." Staggered only for a brief mo- 
ment, the bishop replied, with solemn em- 
phasis: "There must be some mistake. He 
is not dead. I hare prayed, and (jot the an- 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 149 

siver." The heavenly telegram received by the 
bishop in his chamber was true. McFerrin 
recovered, and lived yet several years. 

Another case: A vessel was lost on its way 
to Europe. There were among the passengers 
supposed to be lost, as most of them were, a 
gentleman of Philadelphia, whose family re- 
mained at home. The wife was a member of 
a congregation whose pastor felt it his duty 
to visit the lady, and to communicate to her the 
distressing intelligence in the most careful 
manner, and with such encouragement and 
consolation as he could impart. To the sur- 
prise of the pastor, the wife was not even 
alarmed. "No," said she; "he is not lost. 
He is saved. I have prayed for him, and re- 
ceived assurance of his delivery from a great 
peril." It transpired that this praying wife's 
spiritual telegram was true, and the other a 
mistake. 

Bemarkable case, does some one say? I do 
not know that we should cry "remarkable!" 
whenever God answers a prayer with an as- 
surance that he is going to grant the petition. 



150 LETTERS TO INGEliSOLL. 

It ought to be remarked upon indeed. It 
ought to be told, and made known so that 
the public shall be informed. But we should 
not raise a cry of wonder just because God 
grants a request. If the praying people 
would tell their experiences as they ought, 
they could go again with the plea of the an- 
cient Psalmist: " Lo, I have not refrained my 
lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid 
thy righteousness [beneficence] within my 
heart. I have declared thy faithfulness and 
thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving- 
kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. 
Withhold not thou, thy tender mercies from 
me, O Lord. Let thy loving-kindness and 
thy truth continually preserve me." 

I know a man who was once a slave to 
drink — has for many years been strictly sober 
— is now an evangelist. He was a praying 
drunkard. I give his experience substantially 
as I heard him tell it in a public meeting. 
He used to go down on his knees in prayer 
that God would enable him to refrain from 
drink; and before he could go from his home 



ANSWEBS TO PBAYEB. 151 

to his work, he would fall again into his beset- 
ting snare. He was importunate, but still in 
vain. At length in very despair, on his knees, 
he told the Lord Jesus (as he expressed it) 
that he himself could do nothing — would 
leave it all to him. " And I rose right up 
from my knees," said he, "and have never 
had the slightest desire for strong drink from 
that moment to this." 

We must depend on the veracity of this 
witness, only in respect to the means by which 
he was saved; for his former habit of inebri- 
ation, and his permanent reformation, can be 
proved by many witnesses. Was this cure of 
an inveterate drink habit — and there are 
many cases like it related — was it the result of 
nervous action? If the relief were only tem- 
porary, with a returning temptation after a 
time, such a suggestion would not be unrea- 
sonable. But in these cases which seem not 
to be uncommon, the desire for the drink is 
taken away from a body whose veins are still 
impregnated with the alcoholic virus. And 
science tells us that in the regular course of 



152 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

nature, without the use of any medicine, the 
temptation returns after an interval, even if 
temporarily suspended. Indeed, any solution 
other than that which attributes the cure to 
supernatural agency, is in contradiction of 
science. 

If the story of this man (and other like 
cases) be accepted as true, how is it less a 
miracle than would be the instantaneous 
healing of the sick in the name of the Lord 
Jesus ? And why shall we reject the testimony 
of these witnesses? They are generally men 
of sober minds and good character. Their 
testimony would be received as credible in our 
courts, and would be relied on anywhere in 
respect to any thing which does not involve 
an admission of the possibility of a miracle. 
Yet one set of infidels, mostly outside the 
Church, insists that no miracle was ever 
wrought; and another set, mostly inside the 
Church, insists that the days of miracles are 
past. To these latter allow me to say that 
their Lord is under no greater disability to 
do mighty works among them than he was 



CONCLUSION. 153 



in Nazareth. "And he did not many mighty 
works there, because of their unbelief." 

In collecting the above given instances of 
supernatural manifestations, miracles, and an- 
swers to prayer, I have had recourse (besides 
the instances quoted from Dr. Plummer) to 
only two books, neither of which is devoted 
to the subject. Both are written by men of 
great learning, of sober minds, candid inves- 
tigators — by no means affected by wild enthu- 
siasm or fanaticism. I have been disposed 
to investigate the questions involved as I 
would those in a lawsuit. 

Your reading, hearing, and inquiry upon 
this subject must indeed have been to little 
purpose, Col. Ingersoll, that you should in- 
quire with appearance of coolest confidence, 
in so important an argument as your letter to 
Dr. Field: "Does it relieve mankind of fear 
to believe that there is some God who will help 
them in extremity?" Of course you intend 
this question to be answered in the affirma- 
tive; for no man, be he lawyer, orator, phi- 
losopher, magazine writer, or any thing other 



154 LETTERS TO INGERSOLL. 

than an idiot, could deny that the person who 
really believes that some God will help him 
in extremity will be by such belief in some 
measure relieved of fear. 

So you add: " What evidence have they on 
which to found such a belief ? "When has God 
listened to the prayer of any man?" You 
must mean then that the belief which does 
relieve from fear is without evidence to sus- 
tain it. Good sir, let me remind you again 
that " belief is a result." So you tell us. " It 
is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The 
scales turn in spite of him who watches." 
Well, then, let us say this is the reason why so 
many sober-minded men and women believe 
that God hears and answers prayer — as much 
so as an earthly father regards the requests of 
his offspring. "It is the effect of evidence 
upon the mind." 

"When has God listened to the prayer of 
any man ? " I could fill a volume with answers 
to this question without quoting from the 
pages of any of the many volumes in print re- 
lating to remarkable answers to prayer. This 



CONCLUSION. 155 



is the stongest evidence of the existence of God, 
and that he has revealed and does reveal himself 
to man. This is the evidence against which 
the gates of hell cannot prevail. Yon, how- 
ever, on this, as on other points, find your ad- 
vantage in the nnscriptural utterances and 
omissions to utter of those who stand in the 
temple of God as the teachers of his religion. 
Without a word of authority from their Mas- 
ter they boldly declare that the days of mira- 
cles are past — just as they also teach for doc- 
trine the deductions of their own philosophical 
reasonings, in contradiction of the declarations 
of that Book which they offer as the verbally 
inspired word of God. 



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